The textures used are specified inside the model.gm file. You can see a list of the textures used in the GMViewer.exe tool that is part of the modder tools that PA! provides somewhere in their downloads section.

Without that tool, you can still see them if you open the .gm file and toward the beginning of the file the word “materal” will be followed by a list of words that are not jumbled like the rest of the binary and you can see the .tga file names used.

It’s certainly possible, but it’s fairly involved to add new.

To alter/mod the values, just search the entire script code base for the perk name in question, and modify the logic.

To add new, one would have to add them to the perk initialize, add strings to INI files for the display names, alter the perk texture with a new on/off icon image (there look to be 5 slots available in the current textures), then add all the new logic to select the perk (whether there are dependencies on others, like one has to be obtained before the new one, similar to Advanced Defense needing Basic first), then add the logic in all appropriate spots to check for perk and modify behavior (Example: If some sort of fighting perk, need to find all the attack/fight code that checks other, similar perks and add your stuff there).

The first place to start, is INTERFACE\perks\perks_init.c, find the ChrPerksList and you will note that each of them has a .name (Example: .HardHitter), then search the entire code base for HardHitter and see what they do for that in the various code, like LAi_fightparams.c, where you can see where the decrement the enemies energy for the effect of tiring out the opponent.

That should be F12 and you’ll find them in your ERAS directory as Buccaneer’s_####.JPEG.

Key is F8. Files will be in same directory as START.exe.

First, the original COAS had no decision making for guns at all; if they had more than one gun in their personal inventory, they simply selected the last gun that was entered in the ITEMS/initItems.c file that they possessed. In other words, arbitrary (based on when guns are added randomly or to the end of the list, they get chosen) and stupid.

I changed it to where the NPC instead tries to use some logic about the gun performance and their self-interest in best defense.

This logic I added does not care about price and does not use the player autoreload toggle at all, because it doesn’t matter to them. Instead, I figured that the NPC cares about reload speed for themselves, the number of shots before reload needed, the accuracy of the gun and the minimum/maximum damage the gun can deliver.

So, I used a weighted score, with this formula:

//These are the weighted/importance of the gun's value to the NPC
#define GUN_SPEED_BASE 10.0
#define GUN_MIN_WT 0.75
#define GUN_MAX_WT 0.5

curGunValue = sti(refItm.chargeQ) * GUN_SPEED_BASE / sti(refItm.chargespeed)
					* sti(refItm.accuracy) / 100.0
					* (stf(refItm.dmg_min) * GUN_MIN_WT + (stf(refItm.dmg_max) * GUN_MAX_WT - stf(refItm.dmg_min) * GUN_MIN_WT) / 2);

To illustrate what score pistol1 (cheap pistol), pistol2 (long-barrel), pistol3 (blunderbuss) gets:

pistol1 (cheap pistol) = 9.75
pistol2 (long-barrel) = 12.9
pistol3 (blunderbuss) = 5.7

The highest score wins, so a cheap pistol will always be selected by an NPC over a blunderbuss. The two determining factors that I can see for this happening is because pistol1 has a reload speed of 10, accuracy of 30 and min/max of 20/100, compared to pistol3 having a reload speed of 22, accuracy of 20, and min/max of 50/175. So although the blunderbuss deals more damage, it is less accurate (so is more likely to miss and deal no damage) and takes more than twice as long to reload and fire another shot.

If you want to change this behavior, you will have to modify characters/CharacterUtilite.c, string FindCharacterItemByGroup() function.

Also where should I look to modify ram dmg? what i want by this is to get a increased dmg just to have some fun! I’ve noted that the ram dmg isnt that great to be considered a valid strategy but in some ocasions it seems pretty effective specially the ones after a boarding when hiting the sinking ship.where your ship get out of control and normally sinks.

Most script changes don’t require a new game to become effective during testing. Things like changing/adding locations, items, ships, etc. will often require a new game, but a trick to avoid that is often to “reinit” those things, by calling a procedure to reset their elements to a “new game” status. Another thing that requires a new game is if you add a “global” variable to the scripts, in other words, adding a variable definition that sits outside a function, at a global scope. But you are probably not doing either of those things, so make the change and test it.

For hull damage like you described, check here: Program\SEA_AI\AIShip.c, function void Ship_Ship2ShipCollision()

Thx, I’ve messed around and had some fun sinking some large ships in one hit, but I modified the way the dmg is taken to each ship class towards the first taking reduced dmg so its just like this ” base value / ship class “, but with this come some incosistencies and I would like to know if there is a way to reduce the dmg taken by mass not ship class so the heavier the ship the less dmg it takes from ramming.

Did some checking for you.

The first number is in Ships_init.c and is the Ship.TurnRate.

Then, look at AIShip.c, Ship_UpdateParameters() function. This function is called by the engine for each game frame execution.

Inside the logic of that function, wind is obtained:

float fWindPower = Whr_GetWindSpeed() / WIND_NORMAL_POWER;

But, it is not apparently used in turn calculation, just forward movement (“Z”).

The turning is “Y” or more precisely the fMaxSpeedY variable:

float fMaxSpeedY = stf(rShip.TurnRate) / Sea_TurnRateMagicNumber();

Just for reference, that “magic” number is in GeneratorUtilite.c, and is hardcoded to 244.444 at the moment:

float Sea_TurnRateMagicNumber();
{
return 244.444; //162.962; //244.444; *2/3
}

Further down in Ship_UpdateParameters(), the fMaxSpeedY gets adjusted by functions that reside in ShipsUtilites.c

FindShipTurnRate(aref refCharacter)
float TurnBySkill(aref refCharacter)

Later in Ship_UpdateParameters(), the final result is a combination of sail state, fMaxSpeedY, the character’s actual turn rate determined by their ship condition and skills (fShipTurnRate) from those ShipsUtilites functions, and the speed calcs for fTRFromSpeed:

float fTRResult = fMaxSpeedY * fShipTurnRate * fTRFromSailState * fTRFromSpeed;

This fTRResult is set to .MaxSpeedY that is then used by the engine to execute per game frame the actual ship turn:

arCharShip.MaxSpeedY = fTRResult;

That function is defined like this:

Bring2Range(T Min1, T Max1, T Min2, T Max2, T Value) 
{ 
  if (Value < Min2) Value = Min2;
  if (Value > Max2) Value = Max2; 
  float Delta = float(Value - Min2) / float(Max2 - Min2); 

  return Min1 + Delta * (Max1 - Min1); 
}

Ship.sp are the sail “hit points” left for that character.

I don’t know the range for windpower, as I’ve never investigated that value, but if it were 0 to 1, that could probably work for your purposes.

A good example for this is the DIALOGS\Shipyard\Pirates_Shipyard.c.

You need to get the character’s “Real Ship” entity and set its parameters.

The easiest is the main character, because there is a global variable, pchar, for that character. To change the main character’s ship hit points:

ref shTo = &RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)];
shTo.HP = 3500;

It is a problem with the camera locator on that ship. Unfortunately, the only tool we have to modify them (aptly called TOOL.exe), can’t load that particular model (brig_n11.gm) in the game .gm format.

However, good news. I looked further and there is a minimum camera height specified in the script code you can change that will fix the problem. Find Program\SEA_AI\AICameras.c and change this line:

SeaDeckCamera.h_min = 0.5;

Change to

SeaDeckCamera.h_min = 1.6; //0.5;

I also made this change in my code for the next update.

I looked for awhile and I don’t see anywhere that sets a limit on character rank.

I never liked the code I found that used an arbitrary ship number, like that line: SHIP_Fortuna – SHIP_R_Frigate

This has caused anomalies when new ships are added and inserted between those, which we do quite often.

So I added some constants that help delimit the different ship classes in Ships\ships.h

#define SHIP_CLASS_7_INDEX
#define SHIP_CLASS_6_INDEX
#define SHIP_CLASS_5_INDEX
#define SHIP_CLASS_4_INDEX
#define SHIP_CLASS_3_INDEX
#define SHIP_CLASS_2_INDEX
#define SHIP_CLASS_1_INDEX

If you want all ships class 2 or below, then x <= SHIP_CLASS_2_INDEX I have changed some of those lines that used two specific ships and replaced them with my constants, but obviously missed doing it for the pirate hunters.

scripts\bountyhunters.c, function SeaHunterCheck. There is a loop from 1 to 7 for number of ships, but it will break out of the loop and limit number of ships when this condition is true:

if (abs(ChangeCharacterNationReputation(pchar, j, 0)) < (i * 15)) break; Basically if the ship num, represented in the loop by i, times 15, becomes greater than the main character's nation reputation score, it will stop adding ships to the bounty squadron.

In ERAS the realistic setting doesn’t govern the ships showing up from different periods in ports battles or shipyards. The realistic setting governs what you will find in shipyards and relegates the selection to smaller ships. If set you will almost never see larger warships at shipyards.

I have personally set the encounterable ships in game by nation and period – merchant and war convoys. This is why you won’t find late period ships in the game in common encounters, ports, battles, or shipyards.

HOWEVER, I wanted players who wanted to play with a later era ship (which is totally out of period and ruins immersion for folks like me who get into the era of the game), to still be able to find any ship they want. It is much more difficult to find these ships but it is possible. One can find them in two places:

1. Occasional “Gentlemen of Luck” pirate encounters.

2. Other NPC heroes who capture ships will make superior ships their new vessel. So if you recruit them, they may have a late era vessel occasionally. If on some rare occasion you see one sitting in a harbor it is because it belongs to a competing NPC Captain character.

When our new map and locations are finished and we have our first set of DLCs complete, I will pick work back up on ERAS3 which is set from 1775-1820. In ERAS3 pirates are very rare. Gentlemen of Luck are English privateers, several of the pirate colonies are the colonial United States, and you will never(or very rarely) see the earlier period ships in the game in that version.

MK

Those missions can be a little tricky. Even when, as you say, you make a profit, the other captain will get mad at you if you happen to sink another ship, without boarding it first. So, my question is if this is what happened? Did you, or a companion, sink another ship with cannon fire during the battle, instead of boarding? If so, that is why they get mad. They say something like, “You’ve decided to wage a real war here!”

Another reason could be that if any of your companions, or yourself, don’t have enough empty cargo space, and thus during boarding, you don’t have enough room to carry enough loot, and if you don’t keep the whole ship that has the loot, then the other captain gets mad.

The root cause, is that the code checks for how much loot you were able to grab, and compares it to the amount of loot that entire enemy squadron had from the start of the engagement, and if the ratio you were able to obtain is not high enough, the other captain “knows” these facts and that you didn’t get enough. Even though you don’t really know how much was there among all the ships, your friend does know the exact amounts is checking up on you at the end 😉

I believe you can capture colonies if you set variable bWorldAlivePause = false in console.c, and you have a Letter of Marque/Patent.

Nearly all the text is located in Program\Text and RESOURCE\INI\texts\russian. The RESOURCE translation would require us to make a new folder RESOURCE\INI\texts\otherlanguage; we should probably change to RESOURCE\INI\texts\english too. Then the language being used is defined in RESOURCE\INI\texts\language.ini. If the language requires certain characters that are not found in fonts.ini and the fonts texture, we would have to create them.

Also, a notable change I see we would have to make, is change DIALOG files in Program\DIALOGS\russian to Program\DIALOGS\english, again add for another language Program\DIALOGS\otherlanguage, but also change the Program\Text folder to also have language directories, and change all the Program\DIALOGS\*.c files to reference the correct TEXT\*.h files.

It’s quite a bit of work, but can be started by actually translating all the Program\Text and RESOURCE\INI\texts\russian files, then the changes to reference the correct language files can be changed and built into the game after everything is translated.

Good news to help translation. The game was not conducive to multiple languages, without special install to overwrite everything in a ‘russian’ directory. I have fixed that, so that it will be much easier to have different languages (well, easier in the sense the code will work nicely…I do not have a translator).

But, I also have the original COAS cd, with English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. So now that I’ve completed this, I am going to upload at least the COAS languages to Itch. What this will allow, is that you can simply change the language in config.exe, save and launch. That easy.

Considering the base of both GOF and ERAS is mostly COAS, that might even get you most of the way there for an ERAS translation, if you want to grab the COAS Spanish texts/dialogs. Anyway, pretty cool that I’ve made this easier to run multiple languages, with no special install and it will actually keep and retain all language texts and can even be switched back/forth among different languages at will.

There are a handful of dialogs/interface verbiage that did not exist in COAS, and are still in English, but…whatever.

Dialog is in Program\Text\Dialogs\Quest\Berlars.h and Program\DIALOGS\russian\Quest\Berglars.c

The locations can be found in Program\characters\LSC_Q2Utilite.c, function BerglarsInit()

case “Step_overAll” sets
LAi_LocationDisableOffGenTimer(pchar.questTemp.tugs.(sTemp), 1);

Sets officers disabled for that location, for a day…see Program\loc_ai\LAi_location.c

Right now, the cuirass thing to skip required perk is hardcoded by name, but now that you bring it up, I think I want to change that to carry a .property that is set in initItems.c for that feature. I think I’m going to add item.requirePerk in order to check them. But for now, currently, it checks by item.id name.

characters\CharacterUtilite.c

FindCharacterItemByGroup

…
For guns, the chargeQ number value is checked and must be under a certain number, depending on whether the character has the required perks:

bShootist = IsCharacterPerkOn(chref,"Gunman");
bClever = IsCharacterPerkOn(chref,"GunProfessional");
...
bShootistCheck = n < 4 && bShootist;
            bGunCheck = n < 2 || bShootistCheck || bClever;
			if (bGunCheck && curGunValue > maxGunValue)
			{
			    	maxGunValue = curGunValue;
			    	resultItemId  = refItm.id;
			}
...
For cuirass

bCirassCheck = refItm.id == "cirass6" || refItm.id == "cirass12" || refItm.id == "cirass13";
	   		if( IsCharacterPerkOn(chref, "Ciras") || bCirassCheck )	{
				//return refItm.id;
				curCirassValue = stf(refItm.CirassLevel);
				if (curCirassValue > maxCirassValue)
				{
			    		maxCirassValue = curCirassValue;
			    		resultItemId  = refItm.id;
				}
			}

...

INTERFACE\items.c

ThisItemCanBeEquip
…

bool bCirassCheck = arItem.groupID == CIRASS_ITEM_TYPE && !IsCharacterPerkOn(xi_refCharacter,"Ciras") &&
				    arItem.id != "cirass6" && arItem.id != "cirass12" && arItem.id != "cirass13";

		//if (arItem.groupID == CIRASS_ITEM_TYPE && !IsCharacterPerkOn(xi_refCharacter,"Ciras") && arItem.Clothes == false)
		if (bCirassCheck && arItem.Clothes == false)
	    {
		    return false;
	    }

For guns:

if (arItem.groupID == GUN_ITEM_TYPE)
	{
		if (!CheckAttribute(arItem,"chargeQ") )
		{
			return false;
		}
		int chrgQ = sti(arItem.chargeQ);

		if (chrgQ >= 2 && !IsCharacterPerkOn(xi_refCharacter,"Gunman") )
		{
			return false;
		}
		if (chrgQ >= 4 && !IsCharacterPerkOn(xi_refCharacter,"GunProfessional") )
		{
			return false;
		}
	}

I suppose we could do similarly for certain blades. The only requirement would be to identify which blades require certain perks, set them up in initItems with some form of attribute we add, then add the checks in both the CharacterUtilite.c for officer auto-add, and INTERFACE\items.c for enabling/disabling the Equip button.

Just uploaded a new update and I did make the change I spoke of…both cuirass and muskets contain an attribute in the item to identify the properties and are no longer hardcoded to look for names.

No. It would be nice to offer it, but I eventually decided it is way too much work to port to DX11 all by myself. All the FVF would have to be changed, the creation/writing of shaders to replicate/replace the FVF features used in the game (FVF is not available in DX11…has been replaced), and a complete overhaul of the pipeline calls…there are thousands of lines of code to sift through and change, while also learning the new DX11 methods to figure out how to do the remove/replace. I don’t have the kind of time and DX know-how to do this, considering this is just a part-time hobby and I have a regular job; I already spend too much time on this as it is.

You will have to install DX9. You might be getting that message because it uses d3dx9_43. I supply all the needed DirectX components in the download. Also be sure to install the C++ Runtimes that are also supplied.

Those are the model names used for that character if they ever equip a musket. The model has to coordinate with a musket animation file, so only some of them have models that are capable. I’m also not really sure if there is even an opportunity in the game play for characters other than a special few to equip one, but I see code for changing to a _mush appended model name if a character equips one.

If by “true Shores of Mosquito” you mean the shore that starts Tenochtitlan, that is Shore53. We will rename the one down by Porto Bello to “Shores of Mosquito Grande” to differentiate 🙂

Hmmm, do you mean that if you the PC is Peter Cloise, every time you enter a town port, you will find NPC Edward Davis around that same town, like in the tavern?

OK, here’s how I’d probably go about that:

In file RESOURCE\INI\texts\russian\HeroDescribe.txt, add a new line for each character that would have a set starting location:

startLoc_1 {Pirates}
startLoc_2 {Alice}
startLoc_3 {FortFrance}

Each individual character is assigned a sequential number in the file, so character one has attributes set as _1, character 2 has _2, etc. You do not need to add that value to every character; if you only want some of them to start in a specific place, just add this new line to those specific characters.

The values in the braces {} match the colony id values seen in Program\colonies\Colonies_init.c:

Colonies[n].id = “FortFrance”;

Then, in Program\scripts\PsHero.c the function InitPSHeros() sets up information at the start of a new game for all the NPC heroes. Within that function is a call to setNewMainCharacter (also defined in PsHero.c), so find that function and add to it a lookup for this new piece of information:

void setNewMainCharacter...
...
totalInfo =  LanguageConvertString(idLngFile, "startLoc_" + num);
if(totalInfo != "")
{
	ch.location.town = totalInfo;
}
else 
{
	ch.PGGAi.location.town = PGG_FindRandomTownByNation(sti(ch.nation));
}
ch.PGGAi.location = "land";

Note that we have now moved the PGG_FindRandomTownByNation call to here now, so back in the function InitPSHeros(), scroll down a little past the setNewMainCharacter call and comment out these two lines because they will now no longer be needed:

//ch.PGGAi.location = "land";
//ch.PGGAi.location.town = PGG_FindRandomTownByNation(sti(ch.nation));

There is one more place we need to change, for the actual PC main character, and that is found in RPGUtilite.c, function initNewMainCharacter().

That function also calls setNewMainCharacter. But we will need to handle this a little differently, because a player has the option to choose a nation totally unrelated to their default and we can’t spawn the player in enemy territory if they choose a Pirate, but change to French nation or Spain, or ??? whatever they wish.

You will need to decide what you want to do there. One possibility is to simply check if the nation they chose is enemy to the default. If the char default is not enemies with the nation chosen by the player, go ahead and spawn in the the place you want. If they are enemies, handle as current code exists. The spot to check for this will be a little lower, after the setNewMainCharacter call in the initNewMainCharacter() function:

setNewMainCharacter(idLngFile, ch, startHeroType);
//Immediate retrieve the nation and location because they will tell you what came from HeroDescribe.txt
string defLoc = ch.location.town;
int defNation = sti(ch.nation);
...
...
//Further down, where .ToCityId is assigned, is where code to decide will be added

if(GetNationRelation(defNation, sti(ch.nation) != RELATION_ENEMY)
{
    ch.HeroParam.ToCityId = defLoc;
}
//Just before this line...the ch.nation has already been changed to the player selection so check
//our stored value and the new value to see if enemies
ch.HeroParam.Location = ch.HeroParam.ToCityId + "_town";

MK and I discussed this and it is an intriguing idea.

We were thinking of making this a mod option where if toggled On, we automatically add one of those characters described as a “partner” in the short bios, as a companion to the PC.

What do you think?

The dialog for the decision to join you as a companion is in DIALOGS\russian\PGG_dialog.c

case “companion”:

They have to have a ship that is no better than 1 class lower than you, there is a random chance, and their relationship to you is not too damaged (see PGGChanceMeeting…a function I added where if they are the same alignment, some luck, they might still work with you if they are below 1/2 max relationship status…before my change, if you messed up the first mission it would dip below 1/2 and they would never work with you).

There is no such thing in the game for NPC captains to have officers.

First, you need to know the items id, this can be done by pressing f11 and going to Installation on the right bottom side to enable the BetaTestMode then go to an unloaded town and check the items in any shop to get the ids.
After that go to Program\ITEMS\initItems.c to change the line “itm.minlevel = x” of the particular item id. Just be sure to go options – mod options and do a full reinit.

The .level and .rare settings only affect what will be found in corpse loots. For trader/store, those settings are ignored and only certain weapons are available. There is leveling there too, but it doesn’t use the settings. For trader items, another function is used, in file scripts/utils.c, called GiveItemToTrader().

In that function, blade29 is only found level 6 and above, blade82 level 10 and above, pistol33 level 4 and above, and pistol41 is never to be found.

If you want to change those, alter that function; it will not require an item re-init.

If the .level and .rare settings are changed, it will alter what can be found in body loot, but that requires an item re-init.

Pistol33, pistol41, blade82 can also be found in the random floor spawns that are sometimes encountered in tavern, jungle, cabin floors; the only one not found there is blade 29.

In RESOURCE\INI\texts\HeroDescribe.txt, Svendson is heroLastname_145. A little further down in that same file, the unique model used is heroModel_145 {Depp12}.

For starting ship/gear, the file Program\characters\RPGUtilite.c function GrantHeroSpecifics set all of that. To change the starting ship for that character, change the line:

chr.Ship.Type = GenerateShip(SHIP_Merchantz, true);

For the Snauw, file RESOURCE\INI\ShipsDescribe.txt shows that is ship id “PinnaceSmall”. Looking in file Program\Ships\Ships_init.c, shows the PinnaceSmall is ShipsTypes[SHIP_PINNACESMALL]. So back to RPGUtilite.c, we change the line to this:

chr.Ship.Type = GenerateShip(SHIP_PINNACESMALL, true);

Now, when a new game is started with Svendson, he will start with the Snauw.

If there is a particular “skin” you want him to start with, identify the “hull number” of the textures you desire. Ships_init.c shows the PinnaceSmall has 6 different textures:

refShip.hullNums = 6;

And this corresponds to the RESOURCE\Textures\Ships\PinnaceSmall1 directory, showing Hull1-Hull6 folders.

If you want Svendson to use Hull3 textures, simply set the character attribute in RPGUtilite.c by changing this line to the number you want:

rRealShip.ship.upgrades.hull = 3; //Hull3

Getting that one character to always start in one location presents a bit of a mess, because currently you would have to “hardcode” a special case for that character and that is poor design. You would do this by changing the .ToCityId for just that character in Program\characters\RPGUtilite.c, function initNewMainCharacter to the colony id. The colony you want is found in Program\colonies\Colonies_init.c and is Colonies[n].id = “Villemstad”.

Just before this line:

//For Svendson, hardcode to Villemstad
if(ch.model == “Depp12”)
ch.HeroParam.ToCityId = “Villemstad”;

ch.HeroParam.FromCityId = Colonies[FindNonEnemyColonyForAdventure(sti(ch.nation), ch.HeroParam.ToCityId, true)].id;

A better way, and one which we are implementing for characters that are essentially partners and usually together physically, is to add a new property in HeroDescribe.txt…something like heroStartLoc_145 {Villemstad}, read that the function setNewMainCharacter found in RPGUtilite.c and set the location from that new property like this:

totalInfo = LanguageConvertString(idLngFile, “heroStartLoc_” + num);

As for editing a ship skin/texture, talk to MK about it. He does a bunch of ’em.

Hi,

I looked at your notes and cannot see where player ship and its data are located. To be clear what I want is to change data for ship given to player at start of a playthrough.

The code to paste for officers to follow, where paste it? For every possible location separately?

Rgds, Oldtimer

BIG THX to you dear devs for your dedication. I have a few cats in need of skinning as per above and will try to leave them at that for now.

Rgds, Oldtimer

Looking in RESOURCE\INI\texts\…\ShipsDescribe.txt, the Hoy is a ship id Lyon.

In Program\Ships\Ships_init.c, find refShip.Name = “Lyon”; and change to 7:

refShip.Class = 6;

This will only take effect for a new game. In order to change an existing save-game, some code would need to be written to iterate the RealShip array, and to re-init the ShipsTypes array and to either run that code in console.c, or add to the OnLoad logic.

Someone told me that was a feature in Caribbean Tales Supermod…it played softcore. I guess some folks at PA! and across this game’s community thought it was terribly offensive and took it out, LOL.

In Program\Quests\quests_reaction.c, find this:

case "PlaySex_1":
...
...
SetLaunchFrameFormParam("", "", 0, fTemp);
SetLaunchFrameFormPic("loading\inside\" + LanguageGetLanguage() + "\censored1.tga.tx");
LaunchFrameForm();
DoQuestCheckDelay("PlaySex_2", 1.0);
break;

Replace those lines, before the break, with this:

PostVideoAndQuest("nameofvideo", 100, "PlaySex_2");

If you want extra work…go ahead and remove all the code above that randomly selects a timeout. You could use it as a video name randomizer, instead, if you want.

The nameofvideo is without the extension for .wmv files and nameofvideo.ogg (with extension for .ogg). Original game only supported .wmv, but we support .ogg too. Not sure if any others are supported as I’ve not tried them. I took out ddraw and replaced with DirectShow, but am not sure about the default codecs supported.

Then, just below case “PlaySex_1”, find case “PlaySex_2”: and simply remove the sound call:

case "PlaySex_2":
//PlayStereoSound("sex\sex" + sGlobalTemp + ".wav");

Put the related video files here: RESOURCE\VIDEOS

I am not sure the files are consistent about adhering to the proper use for those, but they stand for the following:

Gen = Genitive case, typically meaning possessive
Dat = Dative case, indirect recipient of direct object
Acc = Accusative case, direct object of verb

When you see @, @ or similar in the quests_texts, those are “token” strings that will get replaced by the actual nation, city, ??? name. If they need to be reordered, or rearranged a different way for some languages, that becomes a problem. Because it will just seek out @ and replace with “England” or @ and replace with Port Royal, etc.

If different languages need something more sophisticated to display that properly, we would have to think of a different/better way, but at the moment, I do not have a plan in mind for what to do about that.

For offical ship type names, use RESOURCE\INI\texts\…\common.ini

The Petite Lugger is .Name “Pink” and Cornish Lugger is .Name “Lugger” (SHIP_LUGGER constant) in ships_init.c

I don’t know, I didn’t write it.

I can guess…

The original was written in Russian and someone translated to English. Perhaps a particular Russian phrase that has subtle differences in that language, translates to pretty much the same English phrase that is essentially the same each time, so that’s what was done.

Is it necessary to keep them all? No. But, to remove some, one would reduce the array size at the top, remove the lines, but before removing them, you must search the entire code for any cases in the dialog .c implementation files to any that might reference the removed lines (e.g. DLG_TEXT_BASE[112], DLG_TEXT_BASE[118], DLG_TEXT_BASE[122] for removing duplicates at line 114, 120 and 124 of the .h DLG_TEXT_BASE array file), change them to the one line you left remaining that has that same dialog. Then, what have you accomplished? You saved what…maybe 28 bytes of file-read time? It’s not worth the effort.

Oh, and almost forgot the next most important step, that makes it totally not worth the effort…then, for every other use of DLG_TEXT_BASE[xxx] that is higher than the removed lines, you have to adjust their number lower for whatever number of lines you removed from the .h before them…either by 1, 2, 3, however many prior to the original number you just removed.

Hm, but wouldn’t be better to keep those lines blank and add it to the end of the file? Like 1, 8 and 22 repeats themselves, wouldn’t it work if you keep them blank and add the text to the last line so the other texts that have nothing to do with 1, 8 and 22 wouldn’t get messed by the line count?

They have another gun because the hero gets equipment based on the hero type in initMainCharacterItem(), before GrantHeroSpecifics (not every character is handled in GrantHeroSpecifics, so this ensures they all get a gun of some type).

If you want to remove the gun and ship, do so in their case block of GrantHeroSpecifics. If they don’t have a block, then add one, because if they don’t have a block, they get the default, which is at the bottom of the GrantHeroSpecifics function. If you only want the player hero affected, be sure to check for the index equals main character index, otherwise the NPC hero out in the “wild” for that same character will have no gun and no ship.

Example, in GrantHeroSpecifics:

       case "Dep0":
        if(sti(chr.index) == GetMainCharacterIndex()) {
             chr.Ship.Type = SHIP_NOTUSED;
             RemoveOfficerEquip(chr, GUN_ITEM_TYPE);
        }
        else {
          chr.Ship.Type = GenerateShip(SHIP_FLEMISHGALLEON, true);
          rRealShip = GetRealShip(sti(chr.Ship.Type));
          if(CheckAttribute(rRealShip, "hullNums")){
              if(sti(rRealShip.hullNums) >= 5)
                  rRealShip.ship.upgrades.hull = 5; //Hull 5
          }
        }
        chr.Ship.Name = "Neptuno";
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "map_normal");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "patent_fra");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "spyglass3");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "blade15");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "blade72");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "pistol38");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "jewelry26");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "jewelry42");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "jewelry1_1");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "jewelry7_1");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "jewelry5_1");
        GiveItem2Character(chr, "jewelry8_2");
        SetCharacterPerk(chr, "FlagFra");
        SetCharacterPerk(chr, "FlagHol");
        SetCharacterPerk(chr, "FlagSpa");
        chr.money = 25000;
    break;

If you don’t know the case string for the character, look it up in HeroDescribe.txt.

PERSISTENCE PAYS

Well, I have beaten the chimp, by trial and error… Now if a kind soul could tell me in what file(s) the item id:s are I would be very grateful. Skill items are what I really want to tweak as to have more logical benefit lvl:s.

Rgds, Oldtimer

This engine work is enough of a pain in the ass to resolve problems that should have never passed testing back in 2009…why would I want to torture myself with another problem child? LOL

Anyway, can you just grab it from an old copy you have already, or update from Itch? I’m not sure, but I would imagine if you remove the files from where Itch keeps it, an update will resolve it? Anyway, here are the file names and if you still need a one-off, I suppose I could package it up, upload and give you a link, but I’m saving myself some trouble if you have a way to self-serve from files that you already might have access to:

The item is “blade84”.

For item display interface, it uses RESOURCE\Textures\Interfaces\items32.tga.tx

Models:

MODELS\Items\blade84.gm
MODELS\Ammo\blade84.gm

(don’t ask why they dupe, but the game sometimes uses Items, and sometimes Ammo, and I just don’t want to deal with figuring a way to consolidate as it’s more work than worth the effort, so we just keep them duped…same with textures)

Textures:

RESOURCE\Textures\Items\blade54.tga.tx
RESOURCE\Textures\Ammo\blade54.tga.tx

Trust me on the textures…the model name is 84, but opening the model, it actually uses texture name 54.

It is a little messy, but I’ll try to explain as best I’ve deduced.

First, I have no idea why FONT_1, FONT_2 and FONT_3 files are there. They do appear to be unused anywhere in the game and on my COAS cd circa 2009, those files are dated 2002, so my guess is they were copied there from maybe previous versions of this game and just left there for no reason? The released game was bug-ridden and incomplete; in fact, I recently found out that a whole set of dialog texts for the Dutch version was just missing for a quest line and the Teno quest was infamously broken dialog at the beginning and as a result, these quests were broken, invalid and could not be engaged by the player. There are surely many cases of useless/unneeded files as well.

The RESOURCE\INI\texts\language.ini file drives what fonts.ini file is used, depending on the defaultLanguage value in that file. That file looks like this:

[COMMON]
defaultLanguage = Russian
;defaultLanguage = russian
;defaultLanguage = french
;defaultLanguage = german
;defaultLanguage = dutch
;defaultLanguage = spanish
;defaultLanguage = italian

strings = common.ini
GlobalFile = globals.txt

[DIRECTORY]
English = english
Spanish = spanish
German = german
French = french
Russian = russian
Italian = italian
Dutch = dutch

[FONTS]
English = fonts_eng.ini
Spanish = fonts.ini
German = fonts.ini
French = fonts.ini
Italian = fonts.ini
Russian = fonts_rus.ini
Dutch = fonts.ini

[ConfigList]
cfgLang = Russian

Any line that begins with a semicolon (;) is a “comment” reference and is ignored, but just left there for reference if someone wants to know other values to replace. So in the above example, the defaultLanguage = Russian means that the default language is Russian.

Of course that is not true. But that’s how they “supported” the different languages. Upon install, if another language was selected, it would actually overwrite correct .txt and dialog .h files from the cd into the Russian directories so they could just keep the russian file subdirectory the same for all versions. I actually just recently changed this so your translating work might go a little easier and to better support actually just changing languages in the config.exe, without a need to overwrite everything into the russian directories. For now, ERAS has an english directory (currently unused) and the original russian directory for the texts, but they are really both english. I didn’t want to break the existing game that defaulted everything for english to the russian file path, so that’s why they are identical at the moment.

Moving on…the defaultLanguage value, will decide the fonts_rus.ini (again, in ERAS so far fonts_rus.ini and fonts_eng.ini are exactly the same) and also the [DIRECTORY] value that matches, will determine what subdirectory in RESOURCE\INI\texts will be used for the various .txt files for common.ini, ItemsDescribe.txt, questbook, etc. That [DIRECTORY] is not used for the Program\Text files though. They were inconsistent there and actually just use the defaultLanguage value for what subdirectory to use for those .h dialog files. Since they used the same word for the language and directory in all cases, it’s simpler to just do that and you will never really know the difference, but technically, you could use a different directory name for the RESOURCE\INI\texts folders by changing the [DIRECTORY] in language.ini for a language (e.g. English = eng for a RESOURCE\INI\texts\eng\ directory), but you can’t for Program\Text folders (still has to remain Program\Text\english).

I added

[ConfigList]
cfgLang = Russian

That is just for the config.exe to know what languages are supported right now, and allows the user to actually just select a different language there, launch, and the game just plays the new language, without the old method of overwriting all the files like the original install setup required.

The font*.ini file uses blocks that allow use of different fonts by type/size using a “name.” Example

[INTERFACE_NORMAL]

Various interface .ini files for screens and program scripts use the name INTERFACE_NORMAL when they want that particular font for display.

Some others that are used for sure:

[INTERFACE_BUTTON]
[interface_ultrasmall]
[INTERFACE_MENU]

There are probably some names in the font*.ini files that aren’t really used anywhere as well, but I can’t tell you which because they are specified in many interface .ini files and the program script files and I’ve not gone through each font name in the font*.ini file and searched all the other .ini files and programs scripts for each name.

To map the characters in fonts_rus.ini, or another new one you might want to make for fonts_klingon.ini, you will need font texture files that contain all the characters you want to use, put them in the RESOURCE\Textures\FONTS directory with their own name:

interface normal font klingon.tga.tx

Add to language.ini:

[DIRECTORY]
Klingon = klingon

[FONTS]
Klingon = fonts_klingon.ini

New folder in RESOURCE\INI\texts\klingon for all the translated text files.
New folder in Program\Text\klingon for all the translated dialog texts.
New folder in Program\DIALOGS\klingon for all the dialog files to use the new Program\Text\klingon files. Right now, they are mostly identical, but if there were changes in how grammar were used to concatenate various sentence fragments together in different languages, then the .h text might have different fragments and the Program\DIALOGS\klingon\*.c files might need to be altered to from the .h fragments together. I’m fairly certain that is NOT the case today, but that’s how it “should” have been done so that the translations aren’t so “weird” for some languages because they really just assumed the same sentence fragments strung together would make sense the same in every language; they don’t is what I’ve heard.

New file for RESOURCE\INI\fonts_klingon.ini

In that file, to change one font name:

[INTERFACE_NORMAL]
Texture		= fonts\interface normal font klingon.tga.tx

These next specific the height/width of the texture file as saved, with the typical “row” height for each character line:

Texture_xsize	= 256
Texture_ysize	= 512
Height          = 27

To map each character, you will need to reference the texture in a graphical editor that shows X/Y pixel coordinates of your cursor. Find the top, left of character ‘A’ in you your file and set the coordinates for it, in this case 0,0:

char_A = 0,0,13,27

The next two values are the X pixel width of that character (i.e. how far “right” is spans) and the Y pixel height of the character (i.e. how far “down” is spans). Then, do this for every character in the fonts_klingon.ini for that INTERFACE_NORMAL font name. The pscale value will either enlarge/shrink the display in the game:

pcscale = 0.5

This will make it half the size of the “default”. So if it’s too big, reduce that number slightly, and if it’s too small, increase that decimal value a little and check it in-game. When you define all of the characters for INTERFACE_NORMAL, you can just copy/paste to [interface_ultrasmall] and just change the pcscale value to a smaller number. If you make several .tga.tx files for klingon, then you would have to specific the different file for Texture = line and also remap all the characters, but if you simply want to use the same file and same characters, you can paste all the same char_ lines and just change the pscale. Make sure to do all defined names in the existing files as we don’t know which are used and not used. Some, like [KEYBOARD_SYMBOL], are used for mapping control keys on the keyboard. You may or may not want to keep those the same, or make your own, depending on if your language users typically have different keyboard keys.

Some of the characters are not recognized by simple letters like char_A for uppercase A and char_a for lowercase a, but by their ASCII value (e.g. ascii_150). Look up an ASCII chart online for 150 to find out what those are. If you have some characters that are missing in the existing font files, add them to your texture, add them as an ascii_ line and map their coordinates.

Hmm, ok, so why the interface button.tga.tx is 2048 by 2048 and not 512×512? Is it being downscaled or what?

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “does not accept?” The PC Keyboard characters will only show on the options/keymap screen for the game because I think that’s the only place that uses that font definition. If you mean you cannot map a dot, comma, bracket key, that is because for that purpose, you first have to define the keys in Controls\init_pc.c; those keys don’t have definitions, so they can’t be mapped as a control until you define them in that script file.

If you mean something else by your comment, I think I need more elaboration.

Sea is a combination of various factors, and every hour has its own definitions. I don’t remember all the changes and the only way I could find them would be to compare all the Program\Weather\Init *.c files and WhrSea.c against original COAS. These are the numbers that affect what you’re looking for:

Sea2.GridStep
Sea2.LodScale
Sea2.Amp1
Sea2.AnimSpeed1
Sea2.Scale1
Sea2.MoveSpeed1
Sea2.Amp2
Sea2.AnimSpeed2
Sea2.Scale2
Sea2.MoveSpeed2
Sea2.PosShift

The GridStep and LodScale are set in WhrSea.c for most things.

globals.c has a global lod: float LodScale = 0.7;

Main Menu

RESOURCE\Textures\MainMenu

Create a folder with language name, copy textures from Russian folder

Menu text files are: Text01.tga.tx and Text02.tga.tx

Also, the “Censored” texture needs translation:

RESOURCE\Textures\Loading\inside: folder for each language name. Create Portuguese and create censored1.tga.tx

Rumors…probably several. Here’s what I know:

program\Text\language\Dialogs\Common_rumours.h
program\Text\language\scripts\Rumour_Data.h
RESOURCE\INI\texts\language\RumourTexts.txt

If it’s not one of those, I will probably need a specific rumor wording that I can search to find the file.

Invalid array ‘QUEST_REACT’ initialization parameters list

Probably missing a comma, a double-quote, or a bracket somewhere. I might need the file to figure out the problem.

OK, I suspect you are playing a game started in English (from a save) then you changed to Portuguese, loaded the save and now some of them are untranslated?

I looked and the way that rumors are handled, is that AddSimpleRumour() function is called at certain action points and it stores the translated rumor text in the current language in an array, Rumour[]. Later on, when you converse with someone, some citizens will choose a random element from the Rumour[] array for that during a conversation.

During a save, the elements of that array will be stored in English. Then, if you change language, load a save, then talk to someone, when it randomly selects from that array, some of the older elements in that array will still be in the old language until that particular rumor “expires” due to age.

I don’t think this would happen if you start a game in another language and never switch languages for any of the save games from that profile.

Yep, that was it.

Now the last thing towards the completion of this journey is to add new lines for when talking to and from the perspective of a female cap’n and also flags to nationality cause a flag in PT is a she. I believe that after all this craft it will be way easier for future translations to be done, but now the new text needs to be added.

Itch did not make it easy to have just one base Maelstrom.exe play all the games because they don’t have a support system to make them related, where perhaps the “mods” could be considered related DLC elements. So we kind of hacked around it, but it involves a bit of manual intervention on the user’s part; couldn’t find an easy way around that, so instead, there are instructions for the “easiest” way to do it for each download and also, the Maelstrom download contains a MaelstromSetup.pdf with screenshots and instructions.

The quick summary is to install Maelstrom with the Itch client, in a base directory like:

C:\Maelstrom

Then after install, create a “games” directory within that:

C:\Maelstrom\games

With the Itch client, if you make sure to install ERAS and any other of the available mods into the C:\Maelstrom\games, it will be easier to do the next steps, which involve manual editing of shortcuts (samples provided in the Maelstrom download for each mod, that you can edit) and the .itch.toml file (the .toml file is what the Itch client uses to list the games and the “action” when you click them).

If you use the default of C:\Maelstrom and C:\Maelstrom\games, it will just work for any mod you install (defaulting to 32 bit DX9). If you want to use 64 bit, or you installed in different directory paths, edit the shortcuts to use the 32/64 bit version, and also point their paths to the mod directories, per the .pdf instructions. Also, Itch does not provide a way to alter the .toml file per each mod you select, so I made one all-encompassing file and added all the different mods and if you don’t have them installed, they still show up in your client list. But I wanted to at least provide an example of every one. You can edit your .toml file to remove what you don’t have/want to shorten the display of mods that are listed.

****Gameplay Difficulty*****

We have had suggestions along the way that the starting characters should have higher level, better ships, etc., so this conflicts with your desire to start lower and slower.

You can try the following:

Select a lower tiered character. The bios of each character contain a “Starting Conditions” where a brief summary of their starting loot/ships/level are highlighted, to give you an idea of what they will start with. If you like the character Pardal and his items/ships, but don’t like starting at Level 5 from the start, you can check the Disable Autolevel box at the start and Pardal will still start with the loot specified, but at Level 1 instead.

A high difficulty level will increase the stats of your enemy health, speed, damage dealt, and also the strength of enemy ships, and to some extent the loot on corpses, but not the frequency of shop/trader items. You can slow down your rate of experience with another slider option — left for low, right for higher.

There are several hundred items in the game, and they do have some settings to limit their availability based on your rank, and random frequency to make some more rarely show up, but some are very common. I believe many of the basic books are common at level 1 because typically a starting char can’t afford them in a shop, but then they easily show up as corpse loot because to date, there is no separation between frequency in store vs. loot. Probably a worthwhile consideration to do so.

There are some other settings that might help tailor the experience more to your liking under the Menu, Options, lower right Mod Options…things like Realistic Ship Purchase, Realistic Damage, Less Powerful Skill Books (reduces bonus stacking), etc. If you modify those options at the main Menu, then OK, it should keep those as the defaults for your subsequent new games. If you have already started a game, you must load a save from that game, then change the options as they are now specific to that save file; then save again. However keep in mind that if under that same profile, if you load an older save, from before you changed those options, they are actually stored in the save game state, and they will still be the older settings you had; After you save, all future saves will contain your new settings, but older saves will not.

I appreciate your feedback and we try to accommodate as much as we can, but we’ve noticed that player requests often directly contradict…some want it easier, some want it harder. We’ll do what we can, but we also don’t really want 2,831,557 different configurable settings either, LOL.

P.S. It looks like you were posing the same questions on Itch (exact same description of the 32 gun ship…), so if you don’t mind, I’ll just copy/paste this same reply.

The dialog delay was a recent request to prevent multi-clicks of the mouse to initiate a conversation causing one to accidentally blow past the first part of the dialog because the multi mouse clicks would still register and the first option was selected without being able to read it fast enough.

But, the default delay turned out too high, and my next update (which I am hoping to release today), shortens the default to 3/4 second. But, even further, for people already familiar with the dialogs, or don’t multi-click because they are savvy enough not to, well, it’s probably irritating to wait.

Navigating a down arrow (or S key) to any dialog response other than the first automatically cancels the delay, but if one wants the first option, still have to wait. You can turn the delay off entirely by editing the dialog.ini file. I may make an easier on-screen option, but for now, find the file: RESOURCE\INI\dialog.ini.

Near the top:

[DIALOG]
mainfont = DIALOG2
subfont = DIALOG3
mainFontScale = 1.0
subFontScale = 1.0
mainFontColor = 4294967168
;4292010979
subFontColor = 4286611584
subFontColorSelect = 4294967295
maxtextlines = 5
maxlinkslines = 5
charnamefont = DIALOG2
charnamescale = 1.4
charnameoffset = 6,-26
charnamecolor = 4294967168
DialogDelay = 750

That line DialogDelay (if it doesn’t exist, add it). The 750 is milliseconds and will be 3/4 second. If you want no delay at all, make it negative one:

DialogDelay = -1

ETA: Apologies, that shortened delay and cancel feature is next update, which is coming soon. I just noticed that in my notes it is not yet deployed to Itch.

***** Launching from Itch Client ******

Interesting that your config launch is OK, but not ERAS 2. Given that you have a setup that matches the default .toml file and example shortcuts, yes, it should just work.

So when you launch the game, you are just using the Maelstrom ERAS 2 shortcut in the gentlemen-of-fortune-maelstrom-engine folder? If that is the case, the .toml is actually just supposed to do the same thing. At the bottom of the .itch.toml file:

[[actions]]
name = “Config ERAS 2”
path = “DirectX9_32bit\\Config.exe”
args = [“..\\..\\games\\gentlemen-of-fortune-historical-eras-module-2”]

[[actions]]
name = “ERAS 2”
path = “Maelstrom ERAS 2.lnk”

I note that the config actually launches the Config.exe directly, with a command line. But the Maelstrom had to be handled a little differently because we needed to provide a proper “working directory” for the content (Start In: on shortcut), so that is why shortcuts were used, because they contain that property, but the Itch .toml did not provide that feature.

So, if you can double-click the Maelstrom ERAS 2 shortcut and it works, but within the Itch client, can’t launch with ERAS 2, and the .toml file has the correct name of the shortcut in the path = setting, then I wonder if perhaps the OS version prevents apps from launching via shortcuts…some sort of security setting, perhaps? Maybe try escalating the authority for itch.exe client to run as administrator as an experiment to see if that helps? You don’t have to preserve that setting, but to see if that changes the launch at all. This assumes that you can run the game by double-clicking the Maelstrom ERAS 2 shortcut. If that doesn’t work manually, then it might just be a case of editing the shortcut first.

– Everytime I encounter bounty hunters in town, after killing them, I am declared as “Evading town alarm” and everyone treats me like a criminal, and once i come out of a shop etc. then guards start attacking me. I have to go to port screen then dock again for it to resume to normal.

The alarm system was redone to allow for a timeout if evaded by slipping into another door, around a corner where nobody else sees you (the latter can only really be done at night, when nobody is walking around) and not being seen by the enemies that were involved in the conflict; before that was not possible. In the case of bounty hunters, after they are all killed, it sounds like the alarm termination is missing, so I will note and fix this.

– The screen for cabin chest when you have a fighter officer with you is much more convenient than the screen shown when you have no fighter officers with you. A lot of lag when you try to put in or take out multiple units of bullets, medicine, etc. compared to the convenience of the chest tab when you have one or more fighters with you

The standard loot screen launches when trade with officers is either not possible or unsuitable, such as in corpse looting or without the “Experience Exchange” perk during boarding. I think the standard takes longer to load due to higher resolution images (due to increased size) of the items. The new screen, while larger and containing officer images, uses smaller item icons and the portrait images are typically lower res, so it loads faster. I had much slowness when I first started using ERAS and I de-res/shrunk the item icons once, but MK hates that, given the detail he put into the images. I doubt I can de-res them again without grief from him.

– The skill books, if I read them it means I automatically get the perks or I have to keep in my inventory for it to be effective?

The books must be in your personal inventory to receive the bonus benefit. There is a possibility we will add a feature to “read” books over time (this will be an action the PC must do explicity in the ship cabin), and after completion, the bonus sticks, without requiring the book in inventory. But that is not possible in the game now.

– I am killing off competitor AI heros one by one for fun, yet my reputation is decreasing heavily everytime I kill them (good loot on them – most I got was 300k on a single dead hero). Does this have any other negative impact on gameplay other than reputation?

Not necessarily negative impact, unless you want to do certain quests. Reputation goes two ways — A bad reputation will help keep officer loyalty if the officers are Assassins, Sharks, Scoundrels themselves (opposite is true for officers that are on the other end of the spectrum from you; their loyalty decreases over time and they might leave), but makes certain quests/citizen help difficult or impossible because they won’t talk to you; good reputation helps the quests that require citizen interaction (store, tavern keeper, etc.) and retaining officer loyalty that are similar status. Side note: You can keep officers that are “in the middle” like Sailor, if the majority of your other officers are just like you. The “middle of the road” officers will just side with the majority of your officers.

– The church missions I am completing without getting any positive reputation compared to the classic AOP game. Is this supposed to be this way? And what other ways do you suggest in raising reputation besides governor missions which takes 3 to 4 missions per rep increase?

I think any good deed such as helping citizens find lost friends/spouses, delivering store cargo missions on time, mayor missions, etc. The church missions were not changed as far as I remember, so if they are not granting reputation increase like they should, I will need to investigate.

– When I started with my character I had a special document given to me by Cartagena governor for killing Spain’s enemies. How can I get it back since I lost it?

You will lose LoM when killing friendly soldiers, firing on ships that are allied with, or part of the nation you received the LoM from. If you want another, you must either buy one (very expensive if you have poor reputation) from a Pirate Diplomat, or do many mayor missions and earn one…or perhaps find another NPC hero that has one and loot it.

– I also have this issue with TEHO and base AOP game, and existing here too: When shooting any ship from 3rd person view, it’s normal. But when shooting manually on 1st person deck, I get hostility and bounty raises and any trading license or LOM on me get invalidated. How comes?

I just investigated this and I see why that happens. The difference in first person shooting event shows that there is always a call to a certain function that will keep increasing the nation hostility, but the 3rd person shooting does this only if you are not enemies to begin with, one time. Not sure what their intent was for this decision. I will discuss with MK perhaps changing this.

Additional issues:

– This one is quite notable: when boarding a ship and completing the captain’s cabin, you have to move in a special direction in order to loot chests, otherwise when you click on space bar it could take you to next capture screen.
Therefore to loot chest you need the “hand” logo to appear on top and not the “unlock chain” logo. But in ERAS you need to move very carefully and stand in the right position in order to loot chest otherwise if you accidentally press space button while the hand logo is not appeared then you would miss out on the chest loots

I believe that is only certain ship cabins. We have several newer cabin models and I’ve noticed the same thing in some of them…the defined locator radius is a bit small and difficult to “hit” for specific cabins. I will need to investigate which ones present this issue and change the locator radius to a larger value.

– I have a Brescian flint pistol – it keeps unequipping from my inventory lately. Not sure why or how or when it started to do that

No idea about why that would be. I will make a note to check out how/why this might happen.

LOL, yes, the NPC Hero duels. That insult feature was actually built into COAS, but was disabled. I recently enabled it again with an infamous Star Trek-inspired quote, instead of “Beta Test” in the dialog they used.

After enabling it, I thought it was too easy to dispatch them if you had a good pistol, because you both spawn at a fair distance apart and therefore put in some logic to unequip both of you and only give each a sword. I had forgotten I did this unequip until you now mention it.

I will still attend to the other things you mentioned…they are on my list to research and address.

Yes, that is the correct idea. Just an aside, remember to make sure there is a ; semicolon on the end of the lines, where needed, like this one:

float iLevHalfBonus, iLev1Bonus, iLev2Bonus, iLev3Bonus, iLev12Bonus, iLev15Bonus, iLev25Bonus, iLev35Bonus;

But, be sure to understand, changing the existing values, like iLev1Bonus will automatically change items that are already set to use iLev1Bonus, but simply adding iLevHalfBonus is not enough…none of that is “automatic.” You have to then change and/or use that new value in the items you want. For instance, alter one of them from

skillN = skillN + SetCharacterSkillByItem(_refCharacter, skillName, SKILL_LEADERSHIP, "bookleader_1", iLev1Bonus);

to this

skillN = skillN + SetCharacterSkillByItem(_refCharacter, skillName, SKILL_LEADERSHIP, "bookleader_1", iLevHalfBonus);

If you want other items for bonus consideration, that are not already present, then insert them within that same code function, with the iLev value you want, and the skillset “area” such as SKILL_LEADERSHIP or another in the list you see in characters.h file:

#define SKILL_F_LIGHT		"FencingLight"
#define SKILL_FENCING		"Fencing"
#define SKILL_F_HEAVY		"FencingHeavy"
#define SKILL_PISTOL		"Pistol"
#define SKILL_FORTUNE	    "Fortune"
#define SKILL_LEADERSHIP	"Leadership"
#define SKILL_COMMERCE		"Commerce"
#define SKILL_ACCURACY		"Accuracy"
#define SKILL_CANNONS		"Cannons"
#define SKILL_SAILING		"Sailing"
#define SKILL_REPAIR		"Repair"
#define SKILL_GRAPPLING		"Grappling"
#define SKILL_DEFENCE		"Defence"
#define SKILL_SNEAK		    "Sneak"

Something like this, using the .id of the item from initItems.c:

//Add different item
skillN = skillN + SetCharacterSkillByItem(_refCharacter, skillName, SKILL_F_LIGHT, "jewelry19", iLev1Bonus);

I posted the updates here this time, because it addresses several of your issues:

Tailor battle interface icon sizes based on actual screen resolution.
**If you only see 4 ships, you are probably using something like 800×600 and when we expanded both ships and fighter numbers from the original COAS, a lower resolution monitor will not display them all. I always meant to work this, but it had remained a low priority as I assumed by now, most people are running closer to 1920×1080. Anyway, I finally just worked it out where it will scale them down so that they fit in lower resolutions.

Fix alarm for land/fort assault
I believe this should correct the music problem after sacking a city/town by land.

Adjust musket volley to give benefit to defending ship and for overwhelming forces
Probably not exactly what you were hoping for, but some discussion with MK and we arrived at a better solution for musket volley. The original was a pure percentage. But, considering that the defending ship will have better opportunities for cover, and that initiating ships will have more exposure while trying to board, a defending ship will suffer fewer musket losses, initiators will suffer greater losses…however, if vastly outnumbered, then the casualty percentage is reduced, because even though many enemies, fewer people shooting can’t get that many before they are overwhelmed.

Feature to cancel dialog delay
Also, the default is reduced to 3/4 of a second, but the option is still manual edit to dialog.ini

Change order of sail to command for ships as last
This was a pretty good idea. The engine determines the order, so I reversed it where land/ports are first, ships last.

Change radius for medium cabin chests
I’m pretty sure the two medium cabins were the ones referred, because I always noticed the same thing. The radius for the “problem” chests were expanded on these two.

I’ll address the other items in a different post.

– Cannon firing is weird in ERAS 2. Sometimes you keep shooting and don’t make a single damage. I spent 4 hours last night trying to storm Fort de France in Martinique, and I just spent hours waiting for fort to break but in the end it didn’t so i left the scene. I used 12k powder and 12k explosive shots and after reaching 60% damage with 40% remaining, the fort just didn’t respond to any attacks from me. I kept reloading the game and going from different directions but to no avail…

Looking at the code for fort damage, I see that subduing a fort mostly depends on disabling/damaging the cannons vs. pure “hit points.” As such, the explosive shots have a more limited range of fire and since the Martinique fort is so large, I suspect that the remaining cannon locators are probably beyond the range; if you had switched to balls, I suspect you would continue to make progress toward defeating that fort. After discussion with MK, I don’t think the current scheme will be changed.

– Is there any way to change the font? I often get mixed up a lot in the words and especially numbers of the current font and wish for something more easier to view

Not easily; the original scheme for defining/using fonts is convoluted and I’ve not yet arrived at a good way to simplify it yet. This has been on my mind, but not something I’ve arrived at a better solution.

– From level one to level 27 I kept getting spammed by requests for “pirate proposition” in taverns, but i realized yesterday all the sudden it stopped and I no longer get them. I killed a total of 37 heros, which means there are at least 110 remaining.

Even if they don’t approach you, the player can approach them at a table and sometimes arrive at a collaborative deal. However, some of the reasons they won’t approach you and will also cause them to decline if you initiate conversation:

1. You already have the max number of ships in your squadron; they can’t join you anyway.
2. If the player’s ship is 2 or more classes “worse” than the ship of the NPC. This is not the best in your squadron, but the one you personally captain. So if you want deals, always make sure to swap yourself to your best ship before entering the tavern.
3. You’ve degraded your relation to them below a certain point (mucking up a deal, declining their offers while on their ship during the meeting, etc.). I doubt this is your reason, since it seems like you don’t interact with them beyond insulting them to instigate and duel and/or meeting them to kill them, LOL

OK, turns out I was wrong about the fort damage problem. Someone else tried Belize fort and it turns out you can’t do any damage to that fort at all; I tried in my own game and the claim was correct. I suspect that the problem you had with Martinique, though only “partial” is similar.

So, I troubleshoot and find that it is only certain forts and was due to a new tracing efficiency. Found the issue, corrected, and as soon as it finishes compiling, I will update Itch. The problem was the engine, so just Maelstrom needed an update for this fix.

Oh, another thing about losing crew during boarding I forgot to mention. When you land on deck, every person you see on your “team” in the scene represents the number of crew, divided by the number of spawned crew shown. For instance, let’s say your ship has 1,000 crew and you see 20 people spawn on deck (just an example, I don’t remember the exact number that will spawn). That means that each of them represents 50 crew members (1000 / 20); this also assumes that you have enough weapons for all 1,000 crew in your cargo. If you don’t have enough weapons, the number without weapons are automatically dead. If during the fight, one of them dies, then you just lost 50 crew. If another one dies, that is another 50 dead. So you need to finish off the enemy crew quickly, and that usually means jumping into as many of the conflicts as you can, quickly, and make sure very few of them die in the scene.

If you are looking for a global replace type feature, that would require some work.

Right now, the method they set up was to use a function GetAddress_FormToNPC that uses the character attribute .sex to look up in the globals.txt gender and nation:

Address_FormSpa {Señor }
Address_FormFra {Monsieur }
Address_FormEng {Sir}
Address_FormHol {Mynheer }
Address_FormPir {Laddie }
Address_FormFSpa {Señorita }
Address_FormFFra {Mademoiselle }
Address_FormFEng {Miss }
Address_FormFHol {Lady }
Address_FormFPir {Lassie }
Address_FormSpaW {Señora}
Address_FormFraW {Madam }
Address_FormEngW {Mrs. }
Address_FormHolW {Mevrouw }
Address_FormPirW {Missus }

Those are all set in Set_inDialog_Attributes function. Then, in the dialogs, where they want to insert a form of address, they insert it like this:

DLG_TEXT_TV[5] + GetAddress_Form(NPChar)

Unfortunately, this does not cover all the text and is only partially correct so far.

If what I understand you asking, is there a way to perhaps just insert some conventional string in either dialog.h files, or all the text files, like common.ini, or globals.txt and replace any instance with an appropriate word?

Like perhaps this in either a dialog or .txt file where it sees $genAddress$:

This is my text and when $genAddress$ is seen in the file, it will replace

On the screen, it will display:

This is my text and when Señorita is seen in the file, it will replace

Something like that could be done, but the work would require to first find all words like that in all the .h and .txt files and change to a key in the word to search for. There are also several, where instead of sir/madam, maybe he/she, man/woman, etc. We’d make a list of what to search for:

$genSex$ man/woman
$genAddress$ for sir/madam
$genNom$ for he/she

Then we would have to make sure that every file read for both dialog and text from the INI files does a mass search/replace before displaying, which would require changing all the dialog.c file functions and anywhere in the game that reads/displays any sort of text from the INI files.

Probably won’t happen any time soon…

Yes, you could add dialog like that.

Then, in the dialog.h file, change the top to add how many extra dialog lines

string DLG_TEXT_BASE [240] = {

If you add 3 more lines at the bottom, then add 3:

string DLG_TEXT_BASE [243] = {

“This is the last line in the current file”,
“This is line 1 added”,
“This is line 2 added”,
“This is line 3 added”,
};

Then in the .c file, your if statement for the difference:

if(pchar.sex == “man”) ) {
link.l1 = DLG_TEXT_BASE[01];
link.go = “tavern”;
}
else {
link.l1 = DLG_TEXT_BASE[242];
link.go = “somewhere_else”;
}

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Jeffrey.

Thanks.

Question 1: The flicker is not just you. I’ve noticed it and so has MK. I’ve looked into it various times before, but never narrowed it down. But, I tried again, and I finally found what causes it…it is a feature for the sun, not a bug, and only affects some hours of the day. I think the darker atmosphere of COAS made it less noticeable, but with our much lighter skies, the alpha blending of the feature is way too too much and causes a major screen flicker across the whole sky. Now that I know what causes it, I was able to adjust some numbers for the feature and it is much better. The fix is uploading to Itch right now.

Question 2: It’s very late for me right now, so let me research some of the script code and get back to this later.

Thank you very much for the information. It would seem that there truly is no honor among thieves, eh? Be they in service to the crown or to themselves. All kidding aside, thank you for this write up. I now see that there would be no way of truly knowing how it all works without looking at the internals.

From looking over what you’ve found, It just slightly bugs me that regardless of what you do, your destined to receive all these small bad personal rep hits if you stay at sea long (the whole “I attacked you, however I now wish for you to leave me alone: Take my gold!” interaction being the chief culprit).

In my mind I would see self-defense against pirates (whether they be licensed or nay) or an enemy navy, as completely neutral to reputation. Only the decision of what fate you decide to bestow upon said encroaching individuals once conquered to be considered. There really should be no possibility for the interaction of “gold in exchange for release” if they instigated the engagement. It would seem a more plausible option/interaction to arise from traders/merchants that you engaged yourself in the idea of self interest. Would love to see this possibly addressed one day down the road, not that you all don’t have enough to do already, or for that fact if it would even be possible!

I guess for now the life of a scoundrel is what I’m destined for. Thanks again Jeffrey!

It depends on what stats you want to change…

The easiest method is to assign the ship to yourself, otherwise you need to know the character ID of your companion. So if you swap the ship to yourself, then change the stats, then you can assign it back.

Some examples:

RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].MaxCaliber = ??;
RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].Class = ??;
RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].Capacity = ??;
RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].SpeedRate = ??;
RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].MaxCrew = ??;
RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].HP = ??; //Hull points
RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].SP = ??; //Sail points
RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].TurnRate = ??;

Chose a line, copy it to the void ExecuteConsole() function in console.c file, replace the ?? with the value you want, then load the game, press F4 and it should execute. Your character is the Pchar reference, so it will use your ship identifier in the RealShips array to change that particular ship. When you assign it back to another companion, the values are still in RealShips, attached to it.

Right now, the only characters that will show different armor (and that is not always, but they are the only ones that can), are the player and all the NPCs that are considered the other “heroes”, that are defined in HeroDescribe.txt.

When those characters are created, they are assigned the .HeroModel attribute that will equal that heroModel_x string. So for instance Diego will get:

ch.HeroModel = “Espinosa,Espinosa_Cirass,Espinosa_Cirass1,Espinosa_Cirass2,Espinosa_Cirass3,Espinosa_Cirass4,Espinosa_Cirass3,Espinosa_mush,Espinosa_Cirass_mush,Espinosa_Cirass1_mush,Espinosa_Cirass2_mush,Espinosa_Cirass3_mush,Espinosa_Cirass4_mush”

Whenever that character gets a clothing or cuirass assigned, the function SetEquipedItemToCharacter in file characters\CharacterUtilite.c, will check for the .heroModel attribute, and if it exists, will use the item’s .model attribute to get the index of the string to use to assign a new model to the character; if the index is too high (e.g. #7 doesn’t exist for that character’s model list that might only have one or two entries), then it defaults to just the first one. If you check the ITEMS\initItems.c code for all the CIRASS_ITEM_TYPE groupID types, then you will see they have itm.model = “7” or itm.model = “8” or itm.model = “1”. So in those cases, it will get that number index from that HeroModel string. But, it is “zero based” in that the first entry is actually index 0, index 1 would be the second one, index 2 would be the third one, etc.

Given this, what I have noticed, is that the ERAS definitions were not really set up properly for this, because there was the erroneous thought that all the “_mush” models needed to be in that list, adjacent to the regular model. That was before my time and is both unnecessary and doesn’t technically work correctly for itm.model = “1” in the cases of all those characters that are set up with just one model: heroModel_73 {Binckes,Binckes_mush} This probably works, because I think all those _mush models were just a copy of the original model, and renamed. It should have just been left as heroModel_73 {Binckes}, would get the same result if that model was simply copied and renamed. If not, a better name would be heroModel_73 {Binckes,Binckes_cirass1}. For _mush, that is musket carrying and actually requires both the animation mushketer be compatible with the model, and also a change to the gunbelt locator to actually just be the hands (but that’s another story and an additional problem someone recently brought up).

So, in the case of Diego, all those _mush definitions should be removed and the remaining list members check to be sure the match whatever the .model for the cuirass items defined. I have not yet bothered to research and fix all those, so they remain as-is.

Anyway, there is no limit, but there are only a handful of .model numbers defined in the item init, so just be sure the list has at least 9 comma separate items, because the highest .model in the items is “8”.

The non-Hero officers in taverns, are created in loc_ai\LAi_utilites.c, function CreateHabitues. They are created in the call: NPC_GeneratePhantomCharacter(“pofficer”, iNation, MAN, 1), and tracing through the function, it gets the model string from CreateModelString:

case “pofficer”:
sBody = “officer”;
iNumber = rand(20)+1;
break;

So it will choose model officer_1 through officer_21

Other pirate captains are chosen similarly, but are created in the SEA_AI\sea.c code, depending on the Ship.Mode, or encounter type: SetCaptanModelByEncType

That function sets both the model and faceid, depends on whether trade, war or pirate and also by nation:

switch (sFantomType)
{
case “trade”:
ModelPirate = CreateModelString(“trader”, iNat, MAN);
break;
case “war”:
ModelPirate = CreateModelString(“officer”, iNat, MAN);
break;
case “pirate”:
ModelPirate = CreateModelString(“pofficer”, iNat, MAN);
break;
}

Code looks fine. You can add a message that will display in the rolling text of the upper right of the screen to verify the F4 key registered with the game:

void ExecuteConsole()
{
    RealShips[sti(Pchar.Ship.Type)].TurnRate = 16.07;
    Log_SetStringToLog("Success");
}

You should see the Success text message, then F2 to check Maneuverability of the player ship.

If it still doesn’t work, check for error.log to see if something went wrong.

The change is in characters\CharacterUtilite.c, function void SetEquipedItemToCharacter(ref chref, string groupID, string itemID).

Find the line: if(!CheckAttribute(arItm, “skipPerkCheck”)) {

The gloves, girdle and boots have the skipPerkCheck attribute, so they fail the ‘if’ test. If you want them to be considered, remove the if {} block surrounding the model/animation assignments.

But more work must also be done.

Change the model list of the applicable heroes in HeroDescribe.txt

heroModel_9 {HeroEB,officer_13_cirass,officer_13_cirass1,officer_13_cirass2,officer_13_cirass3,officer_13_cirass4}

Change the .model of the items to a number that you want to use from the hero model list, keeping in mind that number will be the same index for all heroes; if the index is too high for some heroes, it will just default to the “zero” entry, which is the first.

The GetSubStringByNum function starts from zero, so GetSubStringByNum(“zero,one,two,three,four,five”, 1) will get “one”,
GetSubStringByNum(“HeroEB,officer_13_cirass,officer_13_cirass1,officer_13_cirass2,officer_13_cirass3,officer_13_cirass4”, 1) will get “officer_13_cirass”, GetSubStringByNum(“zero,one,two,three,four,five”, 7) will get “zero” or “HeroEB” if using the hero example

A new game would be required to get both the item init changes and the changed hero model lists.

The shore chosen is not fully random. I actually give the player a better chance, as it would suck to wind up an English character, stuck on Saint Martin, with only the enemy Dutch town of Marigot. So how it works:

It will only choose shores on islands with colony nations that match whatever Flag perks your character can fly. However, the game currently disallows changing flags when you have no ship, which of course you just lost, so I also coded it to change the flag you were flying to match one of the nearby colonies, because once you are on shore with no ship, you will not be able to change the flag.

Since you tried a French and Spanish town, I’m going to guess you washed up somewhere on Hispaniola? Anyway, you apparently had both the French and Spanish flag perk, so Hispaniola shores were an eligible option during the “wash ashore” feature, and it randomly selected the Spanish flag perk to change you so that you would have some chance of entering a town on the island and more easily find some means of transport.