Landmarks on the diagonal...

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

So, I've been messing with savegames, trying to find out what every bit means. I found the bytes that create pirate landmarks, and found something surprising - setting the byte to 0x10 creates a landmark, but the name on the landmark seems to be set solely by the location.

That's right folks, it is not true that the landmark names are random, it's just that the locations that have landmarks are random! And, of course, the landmark names themselves repeat....

Furthermore, the names seem to be in strings that trend SW-NE. Note the highlighted set of "Knife *" landmarks. This suggests that it should be possible to create a world map that has the landmarks drawn in as diagonal lines...

Observe:

[/img]

Roland · Helmsman Posts: 4085 **22541 Gold** -

Interesting find! I wonder if settlements are named in a similar fashion. I know their names can repeat.

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

I don't fully understand all of the details of settlements, but their names are stored in plain text right at the top of the savegame file. So it's easy enough to change the name of any settlement - or city, for that matter.

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

There are 20 adjectives that define the landmark diagonals; that's not quite far enough apart to prevent you from seeing matching landmark names on the upper left and lower right sections of the screen. To calibrate that to the world map, there are about 40 landmarks horizontally from Santo Domingo to San Juan - so they are not on adjacent stripes, but the next stripe over.

There are 7 nouns. They have a standard order going up the diagonals, but they stutter sometimes (Rock, Reef, Rock, Reef). I don't understand the stuttering pattern yet.

sparticus · Helmsman Posts: 5818 **44872 Gold** -

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

Hey, dogcigar - could you look into the code and try to figure this out?

The variable names in text.ini are TREASURE and ROCK.
(TREASURE is the adjective, ROCK is the noun.)

They are related to coordinates.

TREASURE is set to something like (x-y)%20

ROCK I can't figure out.

Over short ranges it repeats every 3 Y and every (7 X offsetting the Y by 1), but then occasionally it slips by 1.

dogcigar · Swabbie Posts: 82 **542 Gold** -

I'll have a look in. Doing my head in looking for a pattern on the image you displayed. I think I'll looked for a stored text string after a game is loaded come across a landmark and see how it accesses it. Hopefully it will calculate the name from the coordinates in real time.

Did some simple x/y substraction on paper of coordinates and could totally see the treasure pattern. This rock value though. Just a thought but seven rock values is a funny number for the computer. I don't know too much about the dividing functions of the computer as I only use SAR and you always end up with an even number of possible outcomes including 0 when you use it. Might have something to do with the value skipping.

Interesting looking at the text.ini the temple,totem and falls values directly after rock all number seven too. I can"t even remembering seeing this stuff in the game

dogcigar · Swabbie Posts: 82 **542 Gold** -

Sorry to be so late (4 months). been busy paying the bills.

I just searched for the text strings and found the code as it was playing in live time as I was looking at a rock. Couldn`t really make head or tale of it. Tried messing with the code and it crashed immediately. It was jumping in from somewhere else though so I couldn`t see any calculations. Will try backtracking. I think searching for the coordinates will be easier so I`ll do that. Any idea how the information is stored? x and y ofcourse but are there different types and any other info

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

The grid is 462 x 293, starting in the lower left (SW). Good luck!

Roland · Helmsman Posts: 4085 **22541 Gold** -

jlangsdo · Cutthroat Posts: 400 **10932 Gold** -

When there is a repeat, it is usually (maybe always) a two-noun stutter, like Reef-Rock-Reef-Rock (see Thunder sites in the picture above).

It may be combining the X and Y as you suggested, but the game holds a lot of things in separate X and Y coordinates, always on the same grid (or with a 1000x scale).

One reason to suppose it is not combining X and Y in a simple linear function n(X,Y) = f(aX+bY) is that if it were doing that, then there would be a reliable way to go from one noun to another site of the same noun, as there is for the adjectives:
n(X-b,Y+a) = f(aX-ab+bY+ab) = f(aX+bY) = n(X,Y)

So I suspect that it is a function that uses X and Y in different ways.

AdamMil · Cutthroat Posts: 279 **4747 Gold** -

I'll copy my post from another thread, since it seems relevant. I think this will work (given $x and $y):