Ship in "Land Battle"

[Grey Roger]

In the briefing at the start of "Land Battle", Sir Arthur Wellesley says that as it's too risky bringing the Indefatigable close to shore, you're being given command of a smaller ship in which to carry the troops.

The Indefatigable is a Razee frigate. What you're given is the Magicienne, an Artemise class frigate, France's equivalent of the Endymion. This is a definition of "smaller" with which I was not previously familiar.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Should be easy enough to replace the ships. Do you have any particular suggestions?

 

[Grey Roger]

I've no idea about the many and varied ship types. Some sort of brig, perhaps? Preferably something with a red stripe along the side, French style, as it's supposed to be a captured French ship.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Smaller French ships with a red stripe include the FR_Postillionen, FR_Sloop, and FR_Volage. Which would you prefer? The last time I played this storyline the Indefatigable was a pinnace.

 

[Grey Roger]

When was that? Both in the latest version and in the original version seen in the basic "b14_beta3_full.7z", Indefatigable is type "HMS_Indefatigable", which is presumably a Razee frigate as that's what I'm sailing at the moment. Hotspur used to be type "HMS_Greyhound", now it's type "RN_Volage" and you end up with HMS Atropos which is type "HMS_Greyhound", which is a 6th rate frigate, which is what I remember Hotspur to have been when I played "Hornblower" for the first time under Beta 3.2.

Looking through "quests_reaction.c" at what sorts of ships Hornblower is given, Le Reve is "FR_Sloop", so preferably not that - no point in having the same type of ship twice! There's no mention of a "Postillionen" - what sort of ship is that? If it's something like a brig or sloop, or a small merchant, then it would be suitable. Otherwise "FR_Volage" would do - it's the same as the current Hotspur but in French markings, though I could always put Hotspur back to being a 6th rate frigate to avoid having the same type of ship twice.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I've no idea about the many and varied ship types. Some sort of brig, perhaps? Preferably something with a red stripe along the side, French style, as it's supposed to be a captured French ship.

Select Storyline interface ship selection filters with ENABLE_CHEATMODE on can be quite useful for finding appropriate ships.

When was that?

A long time ago. I remember that was once the case....

Hotspur used to be type "HMS_Greyhound", now it's type "RN_Volage" and you end up with HMS Atropos which is type "HMS_Greyhound", which is a 6th rate frigate, which is what I remember Hotspur to have been when I played "Hornblower" for the first time under Beta 3.2.

I swip-swapped some ship types for Hornblower not too long ago to get them in line with the NK.c promotion ship progression.
If I recall, the only storyline thing I did there was to make HMS Hotsput a "Volage" and make the HMS Atropos the type of ship that Hotsput used to be.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

That was probably back in 2011 when the Indy was a pinnace. At one time pretty much everything was a pinnace.

Also, the SP_Neptunus and SP_Postillionen have a lot of red on them. The Postillionen is a 6th rate frigate with 20-12 pounders and the Neptunus is a Sloop of War with 16-12 pounders. They are nice handling ships with good sized holds. You can look at them in GMViewer.

 

[Grey Roger]

"SP" probably denotes a Spanish variant. Is there such a thing as "FR_Neptunus"? A French style Sloop of War would be ideal.

 

[Grey Roger]

I swip-swapped some ship types for Hornblower not too long ago to get them in line with the NK.c promotion ship progression.
If I recall, the only storyline thing I did there was to make HMS Hotsput a "Volage" and make the HMS Atropos the type of ship that Hotsput used to be.

Except that the Volage and 6th rate frigate aren't that different in capability. Besides, when Hornblower gets the Hotspur, he's been promoted to Commander, and he doesn't get another promotion at the end of the story. Short of adding in a piece of questiness to have someone naval approach Hornblower and tell him to report to Bridgetown Naval HQ, where he is assigned the Atropos, I'd be inclined to put the Hotspur back to a 6th rate frigate and leave him with that. Or, if we want to have him end up with 6th rate frigate Atropos, change "quests_reaction.c" to assign him Atropos before he goes to Guadeloupe.

(Checking... "Nk.c" gives a Napoleonic era Commander a Unité class frigate. That might be a suitable type for Atropos.)

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes SP denotes Spanish. There is a French early NeptunusE but it has a lateen and a blue and gold color scheme. You want a ship with red in it so............

If needed I could whip up a red Neptunus and call it French. This is the one I'm sailing today.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Except that the Volage and 6th rate frigate aren't that different in capability. Besides, when Hornblower gets the Hotspur, he's been promoted to Commander, and he doesn't get another promotion at the end of the story. Short of adding in a piece of questiness to have someone naval approach Hornblower and tell him to report to Bridgetown Naval HQ, where he is assigned the Atropos, I'd be inclined to put the Hotspur back to a 6th rate frigate and leave him with that. Or, if we want to have him end up with 6th rate frigate Atropos, change "quests_reaction.c" to assign him Atropos before he goes to Guadeloupe.

I just threw the Atropos in there because otherwise Hornblower in his storyline would be missing out on one of the ships that he is supposed to get somewhere along the way.
If he can be given command of her at a sensible earlier time, that would be fine by me.
But if I recall from the books, he is already married to Maria when he is assigned to the Atropos.

My intention was to actually write a proper little extention to the storyline some time which gives you command of the Atropos and also quickly ties up whatever loose ends there still are in the story.
So that can be tackled later. Can't make any promising on the timing though.

If you have some alternate suggestions for ships to use, feel free to let me know.
I tried to make use of ALL appropriate British navy ships in the game and not leave any out, which meant that the Volage had to be used somewhere.
Refer to NK.c and the Select Storyline ship interface with ENABLE_CHEATMODE on.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Is this too red? It is the Spanish version.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Is that ship still available in the last two time periods?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Oops. No. Nevermind.

 

[Grey Roger]

@Hylie Pistof : the only reason I mentioned red is that the French ships I've been seeing lately have red along the gun line. You'll see what I mean next time you run into an Artemise. Or, for that matter, if you run into anything French on the worldmap because the French worldmap ship has the red gun stripe as well. If blue and gold is a valid French colour scheme then that's fine, but the plot calls for a captured French ship so for preference it should be "FR_<something>".

@Pieter Boelen : if Hornblower is already married to Maria when he gets command of the Atropos then giving him the Atropos at the end of the storyline is perhaps a little premature. At best he's only just married; more likely he's just proposed and been accepted but no formal wedding has yet happened. (He has literally just left the house after the proposal!) What rank was Hornblower in the book when he received command of the Atropos?

Suggestion: Magicienne becomes FR_Volage, Hotspur reverts to HMS_Greyhound (British 6th rate frigate), Atropos either becomes a Unité class frigate or waits until Hornblower gets a proper wedding.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I suppose a "lots of time passed" thing might be added at the end. Then cue a wedding, a midshipman giving you your new orders and we're done.
Just need to figure out a quick end to the loose ends and we'd be good to go.

If I recall, Hornblower was landlocked with Maria for a certain period of time anyway.

As for Hornblower's commands:

LIEUTENANT HORNBLOWER
Retribution: British 18 gun sloop-of-war, Commander

HORNBLOWER AND THE HOTSPUR
Hotspur: British 20 gun large sloop-of-war, Commander

HORNBLOWER AND THE ATROPOS
Atropos: British 22 gun large sloop-of-war, Junior Post Captain

THE HAPPY RETURN
Lydia, British 36 gun frigate, Senior Post Captain
Natividad: captured Spanish 50 gun two deck frigate, Senior Post Captain

A SHIP OF THE LINE
Sutherland: British 74 gun two deck ship-of-the-line, Captain

FLYING COLOURS
Witch of Endor: re-captured British 10 gun cutter, Captain

THE COMMODORE
Nonsuch: British 74 gun two deck ship-of-the-line, Commodore First Class

LORD HORNBLOWER
Porta Coeli: captured French 18 gun brig, Commodore First Class
Camilla: British 36 gun frigate, Commodore First Class

HORNBLOWER IN THE WEST INDIES
Clement: British brig, Commodore First Class
Phoebe: British 36 gun frigate, Admiral and Commander-in-Chief
Clorinda: British 36 gun frigate, Admiral and Commander-in-Chief
Roebuck: British 36 gun frigate, Admiral and Commander-in-Chief

You'll notice a lot of those defined in NK.c . A Unité sounds potentially too large, because you've still got HMS Lydia later on as well.
Based on the above list, indeed Atropos isn't that much larger than Hotspur so I don't see a major issue with the new ship not being very different in stats to the old one.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I just checked and the Hornblower storyline ends with the player as Commander.
The NK.c rank progression puts you in command of the Atropos there, but since that is handled in free play, the storyline must give you the Atropos too.

Upon your next promotion, you get the Endymion class frigate "HMS Lydia", so the Atropos cannot be the same.

For Hotspur, based on the current NK.c rank progression, I would suggest either RN_Volage (as it is now) or RN_Corvette. Would that make more sense?

As for the original query in this thread, we need an appropriate French ship that is smaller than HMS Indefatigable.
Indeed the most obvious choice would be FR_Volage as she is Tier 5 vs. Tier 3 for the Indy. FR_Essex is nice too, but that one is also Tier 3.
We basically need a ship that doesn't draw attention to itself and might be able to carry a substantial amount of troops, right?
How about "FR_Dilligente"? Just for something completely different?

Alternatively, indeed FR_Volage sounds best. And then Hotspur could be replaced with "RN_Corvette" to prevent using the Volage twice as player ship.

 

[Grey Roger]

I was writing a reply at the same time as you, so time for a total rewrite.

What sort of ship is FR_Diligente? (An Essex equivalent is certainly unsuitable. Last time I ran into one of those, she had 18 pounder guns, so although not as impressive as an Artemise, it still falls into the category of "not the usual definition of 'smaller'". )

Natividad is a 50 gun frigate, so approximately equivalent to an Endymion. Lydia is a 36 gun frigate and is supposed to be inferior to Natividad, so it can't be an Endymion. Moreover, Hornblower gets the Lydia at the promotion to Senior Post Captain. "Nk.c" makes a special exception for Hornblower, who gets Indefatigable while regular Post Captains get an Endymion (Revolutions era) or Steam Frigate (Napoleonic Era). Indefatigable is a Razee, which seems about right for the Lydia. That leaves the Unité as suitable for the Atropos, which Hornblower should be getting after he's been married to Maria, not right after he leaves the house after proposing to her. And that in turn leaves him in command of Hotspur at the current end of the storyline, which can be a 6th rate frigate.

Incidentally, "Nk.c" makes no distinction between Junior Post Captain, Senior Post Captain and Captain. If we do, we can drop Midshipman and Junior Lieutenant off the bottom of the rank table, so that a regular naval character starts as Lieutenant, a more suitable rank to command even a little sloop.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

You'll also observe from that list that Hornblower doesn't get the Atropos until his promotion to Junior Post Captain. And the Lydia goes up against the 50 gun Natividad twice. 50 guns makes the Natividad the equivalent of an Endymion or Artemise. So I'd say Lydia is a Razee, which leaves room for Atropos to be a Unité. Also note that we're perhaps a bit more generous to lower and middle grade officers than the real Royal Navy in order to keep things interesting, with a succession of increasing size ships rather than a succession of 6th rate frigates such as Nelson commanded before he went straight to a ship of the line, skipping the larger frigate types entirely.

I have definitely tried to be creative with the NK.c progression, because our available ships don't correspond with appropriate navy ranks.

Making the Lydia an actual Indefatigable sounds a bit odd to me; that model is meant to be the Indy, not the Lydia.
Anyway, I'd recommend you make whatever changes you like to the NK.c progression and we can get the Hornblower storyline in line with that afterwards.

The Lydia is also supposed to be substantially smaller than the Natividad.
Though I have a Natividad in there which is a "FR_Bellona" which may be a bit too big.

Incidentally, that list includes the ranks of Junior Post Captain, Senior Post Captain and Captain, which distinction is not present in "Nk.c". If we split Post Captain into those three ranks then we get to drop Midshipman and Junior Lieutenant off the bottom end, so the lowest rank for a regular naval character in command of a ship would be Lieutenant.

We've been going back and forth on the ranks a million times by now; don't particular want to do that again.
Also, we need the Midshipman rank for Hornblower storyline purposes.

Edit: I was writing my follow-up at the same time as you. What sort of ship is FR_Diligente?

Xebec.

 

[Grey Roger]

I'm not sure what an actual Indefatigable is. From "Nk.c":

if (GetMyFullName(PChar) == "Horatio Hornblower")   GiveShip2Character(pchar, "HMS_Indefatigable", "Indefatigable", -1, ENGLAND, true, false); // Razée Frigtae

That's from the promotion section relating to a Post Captain. The Indy is indeed a Razee. Hence my point. Change that to:

if (GetMyFullName(PChar) == "Horatio Hornblower")   GiveShip2Character(pchar, "HMS_Indefatigable", "Lydia", -1, ENGLAND, true, false); // Razée Frigtae

and Hornblower is back into book territory, being a Post Captain in command of something pretty decent while distinctly lesser to the 50 gun Natividad.

A xebec actually fits quite well. The reasoning behind giving the Magicienne to Hornblower is the risk of the Indy being trapped close to shore if that ship were to be used to land the troops. If the French were to send ships, the xebec is a nice ship to manoeuvre its way out of such a tight spot.