Topic: Version 1.1.6

[Strategy]

Version 1.1.6 is released.

It's just a minor bug fix release while I'm working on the mission engine. Adds three new ship improvements (Carronades, Bow and Stern Chasers), more ship variety (NPC ships can have improvements as well), and some interface tweaks (game will warn you if you try to leave port with low food/badly damaged ship).

[Zuul]

Nice . Will try it out now.

Still have not got any graphics from me? Should I continue make ships or not?

[Zuul]

I like the new ship modifications .


*Still sometimes have to half-buttons-on-overview-map bug.

*A new bug (well first time I saw it): Got stuck in boarding. I had 20 men and enemy 10. No matter how many times I continues to board it was a draw with no one killed. Had to take distance and board again to end it.

*Sometimes you accidentally buy things (and sometimes fill up full). You should be able to sell back things you just bought at same price.

*Show flag on ships you encounter.

*Add a warning attacking friendly ships.

*Add extra cannons to stats for the 3 new upgrades (something like 2 extra each, they will be except in broadside, but can be damaged and needs to be replaced).

*Bug: Modifications to other ships having extra cannons will not have full amount of cannons.

*Reputation should fade/lessen after a while (if you don't continue to aggravate a nation).


Should be able to refit a ship for a smaller price in some docks.

Settings something like this:
*Pirate/default: Normal.
*Trade: Cargo x 1.75, Cannons x 0.5, Men x 0.50.
*Smuggle: Cargo x 1.25, Cannons x 0.25, Men 0x75, Rigging x 1.25.
*War: Cargo x 0.5, Cannons x 1.25, Men x 1.25, Rigging x 0,75.

[Strategy]

*Still sometimes have to half-buttons-on-overview-map bug.

Not sure I can do much about it (as I don't know why that happens), but I'm doing work on rebuilding the code base that I hope may also have the beneficial effect of fixing this.

*A new bug (well first time I saw it): Got stuck in boarding. I had 20 men and enemy 10. No matter how many times I continues to board it was a draw with no one killed. Had to take distance and board again to end it.

It may not be a bug as such. In combat you roll dice in battle to score "hits", and with those numbers you are both reduced to very few dice. It may simply have been that both of you had really bad luck many times in a row.. I'll look into it, though.

*Sometimes you accidentally buy things (and sometimes fill up full). You should be able to sell back things you just bought at same price.

The reason I don't allow this is because I can't/don't want to maintain buy/sell history across pauses of the game (e.g., if you switch out to another app while trading). I agree it would be a nice feature to have, though. I might consider implementing it without save information.

*Show flag on ships you encounter.

Still considering the best way to work this in. The flag is useful information, but I would like to include a bunch of stats to this view so that you can easily determine not only the nationality, but also the threat level of a ship visually to make it easier to determine what strategy to follow in a battle (e.g., ever tried boarding an enemy Captain with really high sailing skill? Aaaargh  ).

*Add a warning attacking friendly ships.

Definitely. It's on my todo list; I just haven't bothered to include stuff like that in the official plans.

*Add extra cannons to stats for the 3 new upgrades (something like 2 extra each, they will be except in broadside, but can be damaged and needs to be replaced).

I probably won't make them need to be replaced (complicates the code a deal with little gameplay benefit), but the chasers should have increased the ship cannon stats - I just forgot to implement it. Oops.

*Bug: Modifications to other ships having extra cannons will not have full amount of cannons.

Noted.

*Reputation should fade/lessen after a while (if you don't continue to aggravate a nation).

Could be an interesting mechanism.

Should be able to refit a ship for a smaller price in some docks.

Settings something like this:
*Pirate/default: Normal.
*Trade: Cargo x 1.75, Cannons x 0.5, Men x 0.50.
*Smuggle: Cargo x 1.25, Cannons x 0.25, Men 0x75, Rigging x 1.25.
*War: Cargo x 0.5, Cannons x 1.25, Men x 1.25, Rigging x 0,75.

Not sure what you are thinking of here.

[Zuul]

It may not be a bug as such. In combat you roll dice in battle to score "hits", and with those numbers you are both reduced to very few dice. It may simply have been that both of you had really bad luck many times in a row.. I'll look into it, though.

Bad luck for about 50 times then!

I probably won't make them need to be replaced (complicates the code a deal with little gameplay benefit), but the chasers should have increased the ship cannon stats - I just forgot to implement it. Oops.

So you will add cannons to stats but the cannons can't be damaged?

Could be an interesting mechanism.

Should of course be same with positive reputation too. If you have not helped a nation in a while they will forget more and more.

Not sure what you are thinking of here.

In addition to normal additions to the ship. Having a general refit option. You can only have one of these at the same time.

Explanation:
Many captains modified their ship depending on what they wanted to do at the time. Lessened the crew quarters for more cargo space. Removed all unnecessary parts for more speed.

These are not a no-brainer modification, they have a negative part too.

[Strategy]

Bad luck for about 50 times then!

That does sound like uncommonly bad luck.

I probably won't make them need to be replaced (complicates the code a deal with little gameplay benefit), but the chasers should have increased the ship cannon stats - I just forgot to implement it. Oops.

So you will add cannons to stats but the cannons can't be damaged?

Yep. Unless I add in possibility for damage to ship improvements (which I might implement at some point).

In addition to normal additions to the ship. Having a general refit option. You can only have one of these at the same time.

Ok, I see what you're getting at. I do think it is somewhat covered by (or could be handled by) the multiple ship types/improvements - though it is of course not a cheap option. But I would rather that players use different ships for different roles, rather than having one particular ship dominate as jack of all traders (as I suspect could easily happen). The way ship pricing works in the game would also make this difficult to implement in gameplay terms (the game already has trouble with the pricing for improvements, some of which are very over/under-priced).

It's an interesting idea, though, so I'll definitely keep it in mind next time I do some work on the ship types/improvement framework.

[Zuul]

Here comes a few more bugs and simple suggestions:

*Sometimes when you press some buttons others flicker to green (especially when you sell/buy stuff).

*Option to turn off vibrate.

*Sometimes when you create a new game, every time you press a skill to raise/lower, the screen scrolls up. Annoying to have to scroll down screen for about 5-10 times.

*Repair a part should cost 60 per unit not 80 compared to 50 for full (if you don't use my suggested system). Else you will never use this.

*You said you have fixed a surplus in a colony to not be 0, but now it's common for just 1 gem. That is not a large surplus :p.


I think you have missed a lot of the suggestions in Wish List & Bugs. Maybe add a post of things suggested that you don't want to be in the game (it's not a bug but a feature :p). Or if you don't have the time I could compile a list. I like lists :p.

[jakal323]

Found what appears to be a minor bug in the Shares/Treasure section. The totals shared out (for the crew and your personal share) don't seem to update any longer when you change between the percentages.

[Zuul]

Yes,  you are right. Wellcome to this forum.  

Another thing: rumors/events should stay longer. You seldom get there in time.

Can events like treasure galleon repeat?

[Strategy]

*Sometimes when you press some buttons others flicker to green (especially when you sell/buy stuff).

Sounds like some issue with the ListView code. Will have to see whether I can optimize it a bit.

*Option to turn off vibrate.

It vibrates? Cool. 

On a more serious note, I haven't implemented any sound or vibration into the game (too many sound glitches in games for me to want to have to fix bugs with that also).

*Sometimes when you create a new game, every time you press a skill to raise/lower, the screen scrolls up. Annoying to have to scroll down screen for about 5-10 times.

The problem is that it always resets the screen to where you have focus, and pressing a button does not automatically set focus (if you use the trackball/pad to navigate focus down to the button you are pressing, the reset won't happen). I'll be fixing it in a future version.

*Repair a part should cost 60 per unit not 80 compared to 50 for full (if you don't use my suggested system). Else you will never use this.

Too punishing? I'll think about it.

*You said you have fixed a surplus in a colony to not be 0, but now it's common for just 1 gem. That is not a large surplus :p.

Hmm... I'm pretty sure that I set it up to generate more than 1 as a minimum, but I'll have to check.

I think you have missed a lot of the suggestions in Wish List & Bugs. Maybe add a post of things suggested that you don't want to be in the game (it's not a bug but a feature :p). Or if you don't have the time I could compile a list. I like lists :p.

Hmm... I haven't updated with all the suggestions in this thread (I'll add them eventually), but I think I have the suggestions from the previous threads included. Any in particular you are thinking off?

Another thing: rumors/events should stay longer. You seldom get there in time.

I will be tweaking the event system as I add more of them. Currently, events stick around for 4-12 months, IIRC. Rumors are just reports of these events. Perhaps some additional info to identify which rumors are recent and which old (and thus most likely to disappear soon) might be useful.

Can events like treasure galleon repeat?

Yes. It's a rare event, though - it's only likely to appear a few times during a Pirates career.

[Strategy]

Found what appears to be a minor bug in the Shares/Treasure section. The totals shared out (for the crew and your personal share) don't seem to update any longer when you change between the percentages.

Thanks. I'll be trying to have this fixed in a future version.

[Zuul]

It vibrates? Cool.  

On a more serious note, I haven't implemented any sound or vibration into the game (too many sound glitches in games for me to want to have to fix bugs with that also).

Yes it vibrates when you hold buy/sell button long enough so you get full/sell all (same with take/dump cargo).



Will you add some kind of flirting with governor daughters later on? :p

[Strategy]

Yes it vibrates when you hold buy/sell button long enough so you get full/sell all (same with take/dump cargo).

Not on my phone (HTC Magic). If you haven't accidentally turned on tactile/haptic feedback on your phone, this is probably a phone specific issue. Not much I can do about it unfortunately - as mentioned, I don't do anything with the haptic settings, so everything is set to default (and should be turned off or on as determined by your phone settings).

Will you add some kind of flirting with governor daughters later on? :p

Still working on the mission/quest module. I intend Charisma to be a very useful skill in some storylines...

[jakal323]

An upgrade for consideration?

Studding sails (for reference's sake, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studding_sail) - Maybe add a temporary boost to rigging for the purpose of closing or increasing distance. These featured in the chase in the movie Master and Commander.

[Zuul]

Handy to have when (if) he implements winds and storms, and such.

[ConstantOdds]

Hi, thought I'd report the new bugs I've found in the current version.

First is another problem with the governor screen, where he offers a letter of marque during peace time.



There are probably easier steps, but I've been able to get this to happen repeatedly like this.  Attack a nation that you have a letter of marque from (losing your letter), go to port and pay your fine, leave the port but without sailing anywhere come back.  If you're at peace and you visit the governor, he says he won't sell you a letter, but brother, he'll sell you one alright.

[ConstantOdds]

This next one is my least favorite, and I'm hoping it's a bug and not by design.  I love the new ship improvements, and look forward to even more of them (maybe some conflicting ones, where you could only have grapeshot or chainshot--that would be cool).  I also think its awesome that enemy ships sometimes have improvements--makes the fights more fun and gives you a cooler ship when you beat them.  But the new carronades when used by the computer are ridiculous.



I've had this happen routinely:  enemy vessels can now blow away more than 200 troops on a single shot (apparently carronades are some sort of atomic deathray).  If that's deliberate, then it throws the game way out of balance.  I've had a fantastic war galleons obliterated suddenly by Dutch fluyts two games in a row, and will probably stop playing until this one is addressed.

They don't seem to work nearly as well for me, though they're probably a little unbalanced even for the friendly arsenal.  When they're on my ship, I can take out forty crew in a single blast, often allowing me to too-easily take merchant ships in a single boarding round with no damages or losses.

The game was already stacked too far towards boarding instead of combat to begin with, and this pushed it over the edge.  If you fight a ship, aside from them causing a lot of expensive damage to your ship in the combat, it seems like they sink more than half the time and you get nothing to show for it (and even if you take it, its all damaged up and you're limping back to port with a stat of 1 that leaves you ready to be sunk on your next encounter).  Boarding them often leaves your ship uninjured, their ship uninjured if you want to take it, and you can replace any crewmen you lose for free.

Maybe arming random enemy ships with a crew annihilating tactical nuke was the response to this, but I like that even less.  A good alternative would be if you fought a ship into surrendering, you could press some percentage of the crew into your service to rebuild crew levels at the same time you raised morale.

Sorry to go on and on, but this is the biggest issue from my perspective.

[ConstantOdds]

When I have the Commodore rank, I'm now getting attacked by pirate hunters from my letter-of-marque country.  I don't know if that was present before this update or not, but it makes the expensive Commodore rank worthless.

[ConstantOdds]

I thought I'd chime in on some of the other reports in this thread:

*Sometimes when you press some buttons others flicker to green (especially when you sell/buy stuff).

Yeah, I see this too, but on mine they look yellowish.  It's frequent the merchant screen and sometimes on the plunder screen.  It doesn't really affect the game, so I've ignored it, but I thought I'd let Zuul know he wasn't seeing things.

*Sometimes when you create a new game, every time you press a skill to raise/lower, the screen scrolls up. Annoying to have to scroll down screen for about 5-10 times.

Yeah, I hate that!

*Repair a part should cost 60 per unit not 80 compared to 50 for full (if you don't use my suggested system). Else you will never use this.

Nope, I like it how it is.  I can't afford to repair my own ship, but I can buy the three points of rigging to let me get back out there and get the plunder I need to get back on my feet.  I didn't think that this feature was going to be that useful, but now I use it constantly.  I think the price points are good as they are.

Will you add some kind of flirting with governor daughters later on?

Oh, no way.  That's the lamest part of every pirate game, and ruined the remake of Sid Meier's Pirates.  I can't see bloodthirsty pirates with bounties on their heads were serenading débutantes outside of their bedroom windows to woo the daughter of the local magistracy.

Moderator Edit: accidental edit.

[Zuul]

Oh, no way.  That's the lamest part of every pirate game, and ruined the remake of Sid Meier's Pirates.  I can't see bloodthirsty pirates with bounties on their heads were serenading débutantes outside of their bedroom windows to woo the daughter of the local magistracy.

But if you are a trader then? :p
What I was really wanted was the Charisma to be more useful, and it will in the coming quests, so I'm happy .


Wish you could have different crew: sailors, cannoneers & soldiers, and experienced versions of them (in addition to the coming special people helping you out).

Maybe same with cannons, have different sizes of them: Huge (24-32), Large (12-18 pound), medium (4-8 pounds) & small (1-2 pounds) and a better bronze version as I said before.


Graphical progress report:
Done 5 normal ships, 3 unique ships & 3 game icons (one of them he liked).

11 normal ships to go (plus unknown amount unique/special ships) . Maybe even new ship types when he adds them. Also the button graphics needs to be done. Maybe more things needs to be added too?

I estimates this makes it around 30% complete (as of this version).