Seafaring fantasies

[Pieter Boelen]

Will read later. But why don't you just put the file on the FTP?
There's all the space you need and no download limitations at all.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Here's some more (A lot! Oops...) of my random comments.
Please don't take anything as criticism;
it's just thoughts with the final intention of making the manual better.
Do with my comments as you please, ignoring those that you don't believe are worthwhile.

The Automatic Skill System is intended to be a more realistic approach.
As you and your officers do more swordfighting, you all get better at it.
But you can't apply experience gained from swordfighting to, say, navigation.
It is on by default, so there should be some mention of it in the manual.
You might want to mention that you play with that mod turned off, as per your own personal preference.

Note that an officer can no longer be a surgeon and a carpenter at the same time.
If you do want to combine, you have to manually swap positions all the time.

I have no objections to log messages that explain things and, true, that IS the way people get to see it.
But it's prettier without, so for "random", pictures you can use those tricks to leave them out.
I'll leave it up to you where to keep them and where to leave them.

Renaming cannon types? Might be possible.
Different types on the same ship is NOT going to be easy; IF at all possible...

Actually, the sun's orientation IS wrong in that respect.
In the game, the sun sets in the West and rises in the East, which is JUST PLAIN WRONG!

I don't really want to disable the worldmap; if people want to use that, why should we prevent it?
If you don't want to use it, just don't press F3.
Personally I like to sometimes use DirectSail and sometimes worldmap during the same game,
depending on what I feel like at the time (usually worldmap, since it takes less real time).
I am not at all sure as to the reason for the crashes people have been getting.I haven't run into any worldmap-specific crashes during my plays at all.

The "morale drop from too much money" thing is an important thing to know for players,
otherwise they are going to be confused by it. As such,
I reckon it should be in the manual even if you personally won't be likely to run into it any time soon.

"midnight full cargo CTD fix" is for Build 13 ONLY. It is already included in Build 14 Alpha 10.

"Ship recognition guide" could be posted on the Wiki, rather than in the manual,
since people might be adding more ships in the future after the manual is complete.

"The tactical situation was clear – the pirate brig ignored us in favour of the fat, slow and underarmed large
pinnace, and we were the only ship in range to stop them!"
You noticed, eh! That's Screwface's recent "Sea AI Update" mod at work.
You are no longer the "only" character in the game world that enemies care about.
If there's bigger prey around, they'll attack that instead. And there's more features to that mod too,
such as patrol ships and ships proceeding to anchorages and staying there.

Did anyone ever put Seb's "ENB Improved Graphics" download somewhere easy to find?
If not, that ought to be done soon and you can make use of that for the manual screenshots too.
It decreases the framerate (a lot), but it looks nice in many cases.

For now, the manual's simple layout is OK, but for the final one I too would like a parchment-like background.
And maybe a less "modern" font too. But it should still be easy-to-read, of course.

And I just want to say that I ADORE the flags on all ships.
I am SO happy that the Periods Flags and Pennants mod is finally up and running.
It looks infinitely better than stock game and previous Build releases!


To Thagarr: I can enable the forum to accept .otd files; that's not a problem.
But I can't open that file-type myself, so I prefer DOC's.

Once the manual is done, we probably won't be updating it for every new fix, patch, update or add-on.
That would mean that the installation instructions and download links would be outdated shortly after release.
Instead, I'd suggest linking to www.moddb.com/mods/new-horizons for the latest updates.
That site is not likely to go down any time soon and
we'll keep it updated with all information that's intended for the general public to see.
That means that even if Build 14 + manual are released,
even several years later the link would still be active AND point to the latest news.

Do you reckon it'd be possible to extend the "Build Mod History" part?
I was rather looking forward to that, but at the moment it reads mainly as a credits list.
Of course many players wouldn't care how the mod came to be or what we had to go through to get where we are now,
but it's nice to re-read for the modding team and also for those team members who weren't around in the old days.

I reckon the "Build 14 Features" text should be expanded and/or incorporated into the "body" of the manual.
At the moment, it seems to be the text I put up on the ModDB, which was only ever meant as a VERY brief and incomplete overview.
As "advertisement" on a web page, I reckon it's good enough since there's space limitations there,
but for a comprehensive manual not so much. :?

Also, I'm not sure about listing all the various storylines. The Selectable Storylines mod was set up so that
even once Build 14 is complete, it'll be possible to make additional storylines that can be additionally installed.
This will NOT need to overwrite ANY Build 14 files. As such, this is also an area that could very quickly become outdated.
Maybe we will not include ALL storylines in the final Build 14 though,
since I expect that Build 14 might be done before ALL the storylines are.
If so, we could cover the Build 14 default storylines (Nathaniel Hawk, Bartolomeu, Assassin, Hornblower and Jack Sparrow?) and leave out the others.

Do we need to mention the "Minimum System Requrements" for the stock game in the Build manual?
Everyone installing the Build should already have the stock game PLUS the requirements on the box of that.
Where do the Build 14 requirements come from?

The "EITC Wicked Wench" is far from the most poly-heavy ship in the game. "HMS Surprise" is MUCH worse.

"If you have a memory.mp file in your main game folder, remove it to improve game performance"
RunMe.bat does this automatically, so it no longer needs to be in any installation instructions or tips lists.

"Only start a new career if you have just started the game. If you were playing another game
before, close the game first before starting a new game. This is to prevent conflicting script
operation, etc."
Actually, you CAN'T start a new game after having already started/loaded a game; we deliberately disabled this.
The reason for doing this is to prevent worse mess-ups, but it IS a bug.
It SHOULD be possible and hopefully one day we'll find a fix.

"Don't change any options while you have a game loaded. Your career will be taken offline as the
game resets its scripting."
If you change options, the the "Resume" button will be disabled to prevent worse mess-ups.
This is still a bug though and hopefully one day we will find a fix.
If you save before changing the options, this isn't a problem, since you can reload that save and continue play.
In other words: you CAN change the options, as long as you save first.

"Additional music packs can be installed; they do not overwrite each other, with exception to Curse of the Black
Pearl, and Pirates of the Caribbean; pick one or the other."
Please replace this last "Pirates of the Caribbean" with "Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy" to prevent confusion.
Alternatively, leave this whole part out as per my above note on soon-to-be-outdated content.

Do we really need to make such mention of Build 13?
After all, this manual is intentended to ship with the FINAL Build 14, right?

 

[Thagarr]

Thanks for your feedback Pieter! Yes, this is designed to be distributed with the final Build 14. I was not aware of your plans to include build 13 in the full install of the Build 14 final, so I included all the Build 13 references for installing build 13 manually. And yes, the build 14 features were just pulled from the ModDB page as a quick way to get some brief description of build 14 content. I am planning on going back through it once I get the time and reworking it a bit and add some more of the features. I had planned on adding more to the mod history by mentioning some of the older significant Legacy mods before Build 11.

I would like to add a more detailed history for the Build 14 mods, but I don't know the back story behind most of there development. I was hoping by posting some of it, it would encourage more modders to help me complete the details by providing a more detailed explanation than what I currently have. The way the forum search engine currently "works", it's kind of tough to track down anything. I'm really hoping the vBulletin search engine is far superior! I haven't really been involved in a lot of the modding process for a very long time, so I can't really build it up on my own the way I would like.

Really, the only reason I included the minimum system requirements was just as a reference. There are a lot of people out there that don't read the back of a retail box for those requirements when they buy a game. Don't ask me why, that's always the first or second thing I look at, but I'm a geek! Since we don't have a retail box, I figured we should include them in a place that would be fairly easy to find. SWS added some to the recommended system spec's(Great Job SWS, BTW!), but I originally pulled those off the read me that installs with the stock game.

I really like the idea of pointing to the ModDB for manual updates, and I agree wholeheartedly with your reasoning. I'll add that in the tech section with my next update! I'll go back through and edit the rest of your suggestions as well on my next update. Your opinions and suggestions are most appreciated Pieter! And that goes for anyone else reading this that would like to comment on what we have so far, if there is anything that you feel should be changed or worded differently, please feel free to post it, this is a community effort after all!

I think a ship identification chart is a great idea! I am currently working on a graphical one page layout listing all the default in game controls, it could either be included in the manual it's self, or as a separate file that could be printed out and used as a reference. I could do the Ship ID chart the same way, and we could post one on the ModDB so it would be up-datable there for future changes. Now that I think about it, it might be a good idea to include a printable map as well, I believe there is one already in the downloads section with additional maps for some of the caves and the temple. I find it very handy to have a hard copy of the map while I am playing.

 

[carmenara]

criticism

Depending on mood you might receive from me scathing remarks or a slap across the face but don't be too frightened, I am more or less liking the critical approach to improvement demonstrated so far.

Though, remember that while what we have is not perfect, just like cannons, ships, and everything else, having a manual is better than no manual at all :3

I would give the erm, (someone give that a less suggestive acronym!) CoAS style skill progression a try but I'm the old school, X-Com micromanagement type of person. And yes, just like I managed U-boat crews in Silent Hunter III, my officers have cruise and battle stations. Again, I don't see the need to have 4 or 5 officers in every vocation when my ship is as large as a, well, mini cooper compared to the SoLs. Besides pirates loved small ships and small crews! I can't for the love of god respect a decision to purchase the largest and most badass ship available, because in a real world situation one would simply meet the fate of the Bismarck!

If it were possible to alter the number of coastal ships generated I would not settle for 2, 4 or 6 but at least 12! One could then have epic sea battles or a bustling Port Royale, depending on season. We are in the age of quad core processors and even my elderly 1.6ghz duo is laughing away at most of the better quality (as in worth keeping) games today. Quality meaning, I like content and I like more applying real world knowledge to beating the game, than staring at uselessly pretty graphics. My projection that a 2.4 duo is "recommended" for Build play is one that gives a large margin of enjoyment in all gameplay situations.

I actually like the "primitive" graphics of POTC. They are functional and tell a truthful enough picture.

For ship guide I might have a go at it myself due to some experience in photoshop - for threat recognition guides I do not intend to make it a real time updated database with everything from dogs to cats in it but give a general representation on the common period ships out there in the virtual Caribbean. They do not cover unique vessels, field modifications (I've seen a pirate gaff-rigged Xebec once!), or things not supposed to be real.

As such the proposed ship recognition guide is more of a "Jane's Fighting Ships, 1650 Edition" rather than www.fas.org's database! And same for the manual proper - who says we have to constantly revise and update? Fix it at a point of time and let it tell her own tale!

And of course, when Build 14 is fully complete, we would do a full scale revamp in one fell swoop. Remember the object is to tell a tale, not deploy a dry, boring medical database!

Don't expect much progress these days, I have a lot to do in life (and there's a reason why I spend my entire weekends exclusively to myself, but you don't need to know :3) and things haven't been going well at all. I have to focus on tactical victories to build a favourable strategic picture, slowly, and that's the way I'll make this manual work.... for as the poll above shows, no one wants toilet paper!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

At the moment I don't have time to write up any Build history, but maybe one day I can try.

One thing I would like to do with this manual is to eliminate most of the files from the "\buildinfo" subfolder.
There's too much in there and it's just plain a mess.
It'd be great if all the important parts of that documentation
could be worked into the manual in a way that makes sense.

The final Build 14 will be a standalone installer
and I might actually make a FULL Build 14 Alpha 10.1 installer when I return home.
Build 14 is now so big that leaving out the Build 13 files doesn't really make much difference anymore.
And it does still cause installation confusion.

System specs can go in the manual, as well as on the ModDB, I reckon.
Page with default controls should also DEFINITLY go in the manual.
I'm not sure about the maps going in the manual, since all the island/town names are period-dependent,
so just one map wouldn't do. And it defeats the purpose of the buyable maps in the stores.
If a map is added to the manual, I reckon it should only be the generic archipelago
one that you get by default at the begin of the game anyway.
This specifically excludes the explanation maps that Snow White Sorrow has been providing with his text.
I like those maps and they should stay.

Ship identification chart sounds cool, but I reckon that should go on the Wiki,
along with any other soon-to-be-updated content, such as download instructions and walkthroughs.

You CAN change the number of coastal ships generated; there's an option to decrease it.
But that's not what you want. Possibly we can increase it too,
though I'm not sure if the current max value is set to that value with a reason.
Remind me in a week or so and I'll look into it.

Officers with cruise and battle stations? Are you manually swapping their roles all the time?
Because we had added in a mod so that carpenters don't contribute Sailing skill, etc.
Playing as a pirate indeed makes it sensical to use a smaller ship,
but players can also pretend to be navy characters. It's up to them, basically.

I think I actually prefer the PotC graphics over AoP/CoAS. The look isn't quite up-to-date,
but it doesn't look bad by any stretch of the imagination. And I like the stock game location models a lot.
MUCH better than the generic AoP/CoAS towns.

For the ship guide, note that there is an old list of all ships in the game here:
http://www.pietersmods.s31clan.com/ships.htm
Also, Doober made screenshots of all ships in the game in TGA format that should still be on the FTP somewhere.
I'll find it for you if you remind me in a week.

Who says we should continually update and revise? I say we SHOULDN'T!
I do want the manual stay up-to-date as much as possible,
but I reckon the best way is to not include any soon-to-be-modified content,
such as model-lists and storyline walkthroughs and such.

Do not feel any pressure on the manual. We have no idea when Build 14 might be finished,
so you've got all the time in the world to work on the manual.
As long as there's progress, I will be happy.

 

[Thagarr]

Playing as a pirate indeed makes it sensical to use a smaller ship,
but players can also pretend to be navy characters. It's up to them, basically.

Thanks for mentioning this Pieter! I should have thought about that while I was writing up the preface. I know there are several people on the forums that play this way. There are so many more in game story possibility's if you choose to play as a naval officer. I will definitely include a bit of a writeup on this with my next update.

One solution to the buidlinfo texts would be to just combine them into one seperate .PDF and clean them up a bit and index them, I think adding all that information to the build 14 manual might be just a bit overwhelming. As you pointed out earlier, the manual really should just concentrate on build 14. There is a lot of information in there that we definitely need to preserve. I can add that to my list of things to do. :hmm

I have attached a copy of the map I was thinking we might include as a separate file, the reason I was thinking of including it is because I have seen several posts asking for a map. Those posts were mostly in the CoAS forums lately, but I have seen people asking about maps for POTC before as well. Just an idea. I keep forgetting that little map pack is available in the downloads section. But we could just point to the download as a link in the manual, which ever you think is best mate.


*EDIT Deleted file

 

[carmenara]

Why, that is a pretty map... but of course I prefer the real location names. Takes some getting used to but the feeling of being there (and learning about real Caribbean history) is worth it.

I don't intend to put the entire build feature list in the opening pages of the manual itself. Believe me, no one will ever read it and they will be bored when they reach the good part - which is how Build looks in action. Short and concise is how the opening pages should be, leave the technical essays for the appendices. And the maps can go right there, deliberately made period-inaccurate because Age of Sail cartographers didn't have aerospace surveillance and GPS.

As for now I'm pretty much well, fainted at home after a day of waging corporate warfare. Which results in tomorrow being a day of medical leave... half of which I'd probably spend in the office because I don't want to see screwups. Ever.

*faints*

 

[Thagarr]

As for now I'm pretty much well, fainted at home after a day of waging corporate warfare.

I would rather face The Spanish Armada in a dingy!

Hope ya recover soon mate!

 

[carmenara]

The battle wasn't the bad part - I can hold the fort just fine with trusted colleagues to watch my back. I cured the headache with a dose of Fallout 3...

What was worse is coming home to get to hear smartass relatives give a lot of "good suggestions", that would only result in more misery for everyone. And remark whatever I do is just plain wrong.

They should realise I am close to the women I work with because they've, unlike my so called family, earned my respect, and that being a feminist is far more preferable to being a stuck up, arrogant blind fool.

 

[Talisman]

I have attached a copy of the map I was thinking we might include as a separate file, the reason I was thinking of including it is because I have seen several posts asking for a map. Those posts were mostly in the CoAS forums lately, but I have seen people asking about maps for POTC before as well. Just an idea. I keep forgetting that little map pack is available in the downloads section. But we could just point to the download as a link in the manual, which ever you think is best mate.

:gday

The map you attached is the one from Build 13 (I think). It does not show all the new Islands.

Attached is the Map in Build 14 - with 1740's island names (from Jack Sparrow Quest).

Personally I don't think it is as clear as the Build 13 map.

I also have an image of the map from the stock game if you want.

 

[Thagarr]

Thanks Talisman! I wasn't sure which build that was from. I see what ya mean about the new islands. Maybe I can do some digital enhancements to the build 13 map and add the new islands and names, I'll look into it when I get the chance.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I reckon we can eliminate quite a lot of the files from the buildinfo folder.
The Build 11 ReadMe contains good information to put in the main Build 14 manual.
In updated fashion of course. But the whole salary/divide the plunder and money/wealth
and Letter of Marque's are important to mention in the general mod manual.
In fact, having a quick look through it, most of it looks like it can be Manual-ed or gashed.
And some of it can go into the "Build Info.txt" file, which is mainly a changelog.

We had to redo the ingame archipelago map so that it's 100% accurate with the real worldmap.
The reason is that if you have a sextant and a chronometer, your ship's position will show up on the map.
But that'd be messed up if the map doesn't agree with the real worldmap.
All maps are available ingame and can be viewed at any time by the player,
except on the 3D worldmap (which is a map in and of itself).

Feel free to update the Build 13 map with the three new islands and put it in the Build 14 ReadMe though.
Maybe add a note to go with it "Archipelago Map - 1793" or something.
I do reckon that the 1793 (Hornblower) island names are the ones that should be on the Manual map.
Some islands get different names in the earlier periods, but the 1793 ones are pretty much the defaults.
And if there's any confusion on the names during gameplay, the ingame maps are always correct.

Feature lists are indeed boring to read. I prefer your idea of putting the features in a gameplay text.
I do reckon that pretty much all important features should end up being referenced somewhere though.
And maybe we can make an Index in the back, which is a feature list + reference to the page where the feature is mentioned.

 

[carmenara]

All maps are available ingame and can be viewed at any time by the player,
except on the 3D worldmap (which is a map in and of itself).

I say we need a hotkey on that - right now its like having all my maps under lock & key :3

But the whole salary/divide the plunder and money/wealth
and Letter of Marque's are important to mention in the general mod manual.

Main feature of my commerce raiding campaign, which is even Dutch!

The reason is that if you have a sextant and a chronometer, your ship's position will show up on the map.

I love the idea of activating the "normal" game interface with special items. Makes you do a bit of thinking!

And if there's any confusion on the names during gameplay, the ingame maps are always correct.

A sure fire way to scare people is to post the "early explorers" period map which is completely in Spanish. I had fun finding out which island was which!

I do reckon that pretty much all important features should end up being referenced somewhere though.

Never underestimate the power of annexures.


---

EDIT:

On a side note the game crashing on "Sail Ho" has become pretty annoying - I'm observing about a 25% chance of CTD upon each directsail ship encounter event, and the same for encountering other ships, or coastal shipping when dropping out of the arcade map (i.e. "long range sailing interface").

EDIT 2:

I finally put some time into POTC (Fallout got repetitive rather fast) and sailed, for a couple hours against unfavourable breezes, at no more than 4 kts from Curacao to Cuba where I unloaded the cargo of medicine and sugar for a very good price (considering Spain was at war with everyone else, trading as a neutral was very popular). Havana was like a ghost town; the streets being half-empty...

I encountered a large number of big ships along the way (I set the random encounters to generate all ships regardless of player level, but I think more flotillas of small ships should be generated rather than men o war and warships, since commercial traffic logically should be more common than large warships! And no, I like seeing the occasional frigate or lineship giving me a challenge to escape so I don't use the other option : generate ships according to level ) but they were too far away to affect my voyage.

We had fired our cannon a total of once in anger near Port Royale, against a French frigate that fired on us with her stern guns and sailed away, soon after we flew the English flag so as not to be fired upon by Dutch, English or Spanish.

We encountered several wrecked ships still afloat, rescued crew from a lifeboat off Cuba, struggled for over a week in game time to dock in Havana way in the north, as the winds made it impossible to sail towards Hispaniola. For the next 3 weeks we gained intelligence on the Spanish and arranged expeditions into the wilderness to create a secret "Coast Watchers" outpost, manning it with anti-government activists and Dutch "observers".... in my dreams, of course.

So yes, there will be a construction tutorial!

Then we purchased a shipload of sandal to ship to Jamaica where we will likewise conduct covert operations under Dutch employ before returning to Curacao... hopefully with naval combat experience. The crew was itching to plunder some defenseless merchant ever since we left port, but I guess the 3-way colonial war forced everyone in the merchant marines to sail in convoy or not at all!

EDIT3:

Love the Master and Commander music pack! Eventually I might capture enough footage to make a music video of sorts. Problem is, well, most of it would contain various types of ships shooting each other... I'm trying to think of innovative ways to instil motion into recordings.... by using a handphone camera panning across a huge widescreen display, instead of just capturing from Fraps. Got that idea from the unique "handheld camera" effects from Battlestar Galactica.

Well the only trouble is that its' VERY difficult to do a fly-round shot with the mouse while panning the camera across the screen for the flyby effect... and fighting the ship at once.

EDIT4 (will the edits ever end?)

I am tempted to download all the music packs and do a "remix" with all my favourites from everything mixed together. So it's POTC for sailing, MnC for battle... etc. Do you mind?

Wait, I changed my mind, I want the board and capture from POTC for battle1, alongside MnC as battle3. POTC main theme for setting sail. Hey, my first mod :3 of sorts..

EDIT5:

Skies of Arcadia tracks deserve to be "remixed" by making long tracks out of the many short ones. And oh, I must watch Cutthroat Island tonight; I remember it from my childhood days when it was shown in school (grade 4 I think). Yes, they showed pirate stuff in school :3

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Map hotkey? Because right now you have to click F2>Inventory>Maps>Archipelago Map?
Should be possible. I know one function that'll instantly load a map on the screen.
But that's not the exact function that you get when selecting those buttons.

I also like the items that enable certain interface/gameplay things.
That adds more of a purpose to the items as well and makes the early game more challenging,
without having to resort to increasing the enemy HP.

"Early Explorers" map in the manual? LOL! Indeed, let's not do that.
The long Spanish names not actually fitting on there doesn't help either.

Annexures? Like annexes? Could do. But I reckon most could be either incorporated or removed.

25% crash chance? NOT GOOD! If only we knew why.

Havana a ghost town? There should always be random characters.
The new game's towns still need their regular citizens with "directions/rumours"-dialog characters.
If only somebody were to write the dialogs for that...

In Build 14 Alpha 10, you can use Ctrl+Arrow Keys to move the camera to other ships.
You could use that to put the camera on a ship that is in battle with another ship,
then make a movie of that. Or use the free camera mode.
For the movie, it doesn't matter if it's YOUR ship in battle or not.
And indeed different camera angles would make it much more interesting.
Also join in some land- and deck-based stuff and different weather/light conditions and it could be really good.

I think Jack Black is playing around with a combination-music-pack as well.
Why don't you join up with him? There's a lot of cool useful music on the FTP that I put on.
I'd like more variety in the music, incorporating good stuff from all sorts of movies and such.

In any case, why would I (or anyone else) object to you doing work on music packs?

I know Cuttroat Island is considered one of the worst movies ever made, but I really don't know why.
It sure is enjoyable and with the lack of many pirate movies in colour with good image/sound quality,
it's one of the few that is certainly worth watching if you're into that.
And the music is incredible.

 

[carmenara]

It's refreshing to see my suggestions get some attention :3

That adds more of a purpose to the items as well and makes the early game more challenging,
without having to resort to increasing the enemy HP.

That's exactly why I gave up on Fallout 3 after half a week. Tactics became more button mashing and exploit AI loopholes than real-world which is supposed to be the main course. Enemies had so much HP that grenades and single shot rifles had no effect on even irregular human troops! (Imagine unloading a whole 10mm SMG magazine into an unarmoured hostile at point blank range then you get killed the next moment by the very same swiss cheesed person). They had as much HP as the ogre-like Super Mutants which are ironically, ten times easier to take out.

In Build 14 Alpha 10, you can use Ctrl+Arrow Keys to move the camera to other ships.

That's great to know! (and MUST be put in the manual). Next time I see a schooner harassing lineships like the famous Russian brig...

In this regard I spent a whole battery charge making videos out of the previously posted effort. The motion is great but video quality well, it's kind of like a cheap spyglass. Still, should be adequate for a youtube video... until I get a suitably cheap, second hand, made in China camcorder that delivers results.

Leaving Cuba, I encountered a pirate 52 (!!) gun pinnace commerce raider and a corvette escort. They closed the range very rapidly and held the weather gage... until a chain broadside took out the warship's foremast whereupon the pinnace hauled ass leaving me in a broadside duel with the corvette's heavy cannon. My light 6 pdrs had literally no effect on their hull besides being able to fire 4 salvoes for every one of theirs so as soon as the wind direction let me break out of irons (that took... about half an hour) I went after the pinnace who struck her colours. I didn't take her as prize because having one large slow ship is enough and having so many cannon meant her cargo hold was smaller than even a small merchant.

Tacking upwind I sighted two Spanish ships and it was decided our ship had suffered merely light damage and flying our real flag (Dutch) we engaged a new fast caravel in our fore-and-aft rigged Portuguese caravel from perhaps a century ago, as well as a dinghy that got into the fray and could not be hit at all because she was so tiny!

It's now a battle for the crippled corvette and the main combatants now being two age of sail equivalents of armed merchant cruisers, it's turning out to be pretty brutal as all AMC duels tend to be... at least in WW2.

 

[carmenara]

Here be a lil teaser of what I'm up to (movie project) alongside the manual:

http://rapidshare.com/files/315896432/SWS-1NHIntro.wmv

 

[Pieter Boelen]

This file can only be downloaded by becoming a Premium member

There are no more download slots available for free users right now. If you don't want to become a premium member, you might want to try again later.

Crap. Try using our FTP. Seriously.

 

[carmenara]

Filefront it is then; will take just a moment.

Done:
http://www.filefront.com/15052983/SWS-1NHIntro.wmv

 

[carmenara]

I was just thinking... why don't we put some time in here as well?

New addon for CoAS

 

[Thagarr]

Nice little video SWS! I'm really looking forward to seeing the whole thing when your done! I haven't had a whole lot of time the past few days, plus I am going to be working overtime for a while, but I should get around to updating my stuff sometime this weekend.

Secret of The Far Seas would be a great project for a proper translation! Some of the CoAS mods have already incorporated some aspects into the game. I would be willing to help, but I probably wouldn't have much time till we get this manual done and things slow down at work some. Maybe some time early next year I will be able to contribute a bit more.