Fixed "Strange Things Going On": Animist ships are not hostile to pirates

[Grey Roger]

Doing the "Strange Things Going On in the Archipelago" sidequest, I'd got to the bit where you deliver the letter to Padre Domingues, then he wants you to go to Bridgetown to meet the Montanez. There were a couple of messages in "error.log" which drew my attention to these lines in "quests_side.c", case "prepare_for_barkue":

           Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Dark Mystery_Man_04")].recognized = true; // PB: Ensure they're hostile!
           Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Dark Mystery_Man_05")].recognized = true; // PB: Ensure they're hostile!

These are presumably meant to ensure that the Animist ships at Barbados are hostile to you even if you're flying a pirate flag. The problem is that "Dark Mystery_Man_04" and "Dark Mystery_Man_05" don't exist! I tested this by exiting worldmap near Barbados with a pirate flag, and sure enough, the Montanez and two Animist ships spawned near me and only the Montanez was hostile.

Replace those lines with:

           Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Mystery_Man_04")].recognized = true; 
           Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Mystery_Man_05")].recognized = true;

The Animist captains are "Mystery_Man_04" and "Mystery_Man_05" (no "Dark" ). With that in place, I ran the same test and this time the Animists were properly hostile.

Hint: don't use auto-aim when fighting this battle. Montanez is hostile too, so auto-aim will target it as well as the Animists. You do not want to sink the ship you're supposed to be protecting, even if it's trying to sink you...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Replace those lines with:

Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Mystery_Man_04")].recognized = true;
Characters[GetCharacterIndex("Mystery_Man_05")].recognized = true;

The Animist captains are "Mystery_Man_04" and "Mystery_Man_05" (no "Dark" ). With that in place, I ran the same test and this time the Animists were properly hostile.

Must be a typo; probably copied from "Dark Master" or something.

Hint: don't use auto-aim when fighting this battle. Montanez is hostile too, so auto-aim will target it as well as the Animists. You do not want to sink the ship you're supposed to be protecting, even if it's trying to sink you...

If I recall, the Montanez has a special attribute set so they'll ALWAYS believe your false flag.
So fly a flag that isn't hostile to them.

 

[Grey Roger]

Montanez flies a Spanish flag. So if I'm friendly to her then I'm flying a French or Spanish flag, which makes me hostile to Bridgetown fort and any British ships in the area. Personally I'd rather take my chances against the peashooter armament of the Montanez, be careful where I'm shooting, and board the Animist ships as quickly as possible.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Montanez flies a Spanish flag. So if I'm friendly to her then I'm flying a French or Spanish flag, which makes me hostile to Bridgetown fort and any British ships in the area. Personally I'd rather take my chances against the peashooter armament of the Montanez, be careful where I'm shooting, and board the Animist ships as quickly as possible.

Your choice.

I can't really think of any sensible way to make the story work regardless of nation relations.
Unless the Montanez is changed to PERSONAL_NATION with some sort of Spanish-ish flag.
Then the dialogs and quest texts would have to be changed to indicate her "special status".

 

[Grey Roger]

Perhaps change the Montanez to be British. If I were going anywhere near Bridgetown in something the size of the Montanez, you can bet I'd be flying a British flag even if my name was Diego Espinosa.

Otherwise just leave it as it is. If you do choose to fly a French or Spanish flag then your ship gets teleported to the lighthouse, so at least you don't need to worry about Bridgetown fort on the way out, you just need to worry about any random British ships which might also appear there. If you choose to fly a British flag then you need to be careful not to do the Animists' job for them. If you choose to fly a pirate flag, which is what that piece of code is supposed to handle, then you get to face both problems. It's the player's choice of which problem to face...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Hence my idea of him using a Personal flag. That is really the only way to rule out ALL such problems.

Unless we add an extra attribute for "this guy always friendly to player regardless of nation relations".