The Pirate-Poet For Polythreme

[Dratoran]

Hello, my friends. I just published 5 mods on Nexusmods and now want to introduce them to the community. The biggest of them all ist "The Pirate-Poet For Polythreme" and I'm rather confident that this is mod has much more content than all the other mods currently available for Sunless Sea. For simplicity sake I will just copy the descriptions I wrote for Nexusmods in the following.

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The Pirate-Poet For Polythreme

Introduction
Basically all mods I've seen in the limited modding community of Sunless Sea are rather small. Some events, shops or specific game mechanics are tweaked a little, but all in all the mods neither make big changes nor add new story content. However, the following mod does both of these things!


Features
'The Pirate-Poet For Polythreme' adds a very long quest line based on the Pirate-Poet to the game (who would've guessed, right?), which consist of three big parts:

1. The first part is an expansion of what is already in the game. Instead of simply sinking the Pirate-Poet's boat, you now get the chance to save her and her crew from drowning and bring them to Gaider's Mourn yourself. Every trip to the Mourn contains several events, which tell the story of the interactions between the pirates and your own crew.

2. After a few of these encounters you'll receive the possibility to recruit the Pirate-Poet as a first officer. Attention: She's the only officer in the game, who increases pages for secrets! I thought this would be fitting for a poet and after testing it myself I can safely say that this is definitely not a game breaker.

As your officer the Pirate-Poet has her own stories and quests. She will need your help to deal with a rather personal matter and to continue her fight against the tyranny of Polythreme's king. Will the putsch succeed with your support?

3. If it does, the third part of the quest line starts: Reforming Polythreme to create a modern nation, which is able to defend itself against its neighbors. This also means new shops, a new drydock to repair your ship, your own chamber for the night in the palace and a Survey Office similar to that of London (Port reports and strategic information included).

You will need to increase the economy, diplomacy and military strength of Polythreme additional to your search for allies or Polythreme might be destroyed in the upcoming conflict with the Khanate. Your actions decide about defeat or victory and if fulfill the secret condition, you will even receive a legacy item.

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All the while you have the option to start a romance with the Pirate-Poet and this one is actually intended to feel like one, instead of the single tryst-event you usually get with the other romance options. A chain of ten events describe your romantic time with your favorite officer, but beware: If you continue this story while having a sweetheart in London one of them will make you choose sooner or later – and this time for real.

If everything went right, you might get the option to retire on Polythreme together with the Pirate-Poet. Nevertheless, there are many dangers during the quest line: You might lose the Pirate-Poet, Polythreme might get occupied or destroyed by the Khanate (don't worry: Polythreme's quests are changed accordingly so that most of them will still work afterwards) and there is even the possibility of death (but its a small one and you will be warned beforehand).

What happens with the Merciless Modiste, you might ask at this point? Don't worry: Her quest line was changed to fit together with the one of the Pirate-Poet. In the end, you'll probably need to choose, but that doesn't have to be bad, because this mod actually allows you to imprison the Merciless Modiste an keep her as a mascot on your ship (yeah, I never really liked her).


The language
You've probably noticed that I'm not a native English speaker. My English isn't horrible, but it isn't perfect either. The writing for this mod reflects this, which means that you will probably encounter a big amount of mistakes – mistakes I'm unable to recognize on my own. The mod contains several .odt-files with the complete text I wrote for this mod. If you like my work and are a native English speaker, please consider to help me with correcting the text so I might replace it.

If you do so however you need to keep some things in mind:

Please make your changes visible, because I won't change anything without reviewing it beforehand.
Please refrain from rewriting things, because you don't like my writing style. I'm not an author and English isn't my native language, but it is still my story and I want to tell it in my own words. However, you might offer suggestions, if you want to.
You will find things like \r\n\r\n or \" in the text. This is necessary for the layout in the game. Please don't change them.
Some parts are original text from the original game. Since I wrote it as a continuous story, it was easier to copy some things that were already in the game to prevent gaps. Not all of these parts are marked accordingly. If they are, however, you'll find a legend at the beginning of the specific .odt.
Some passages are used more than once, but might be changed a little to fit the specific context. Therefore I would like to beg you to still read this duplicates too and not to skip them.
You might encounter german commentary. Just ignore these ramblings of mine.



Influence on other quests
Like I hinted before: I tried to minimize the number of quests affected through my mod, but in some instance this was impossible. Quests affected are mainly those in Polythreme.

The option to obtain a Wakeful Idol will become permanently unavailable at the end of act 2 of the quest line – no matter what you do. The Idol is necessary to finish the quest of the Principle of Corals in Port Cecil. If you want to do this, you should obtain your specimen as soon as possible.
The quest 'Cay Men marked for London' will become unavailable, if the putsch in act 2 succeeds, but there will be an alternative starting in London. However, if Polythreme gets destroyed at the end of act 3 this new option will vanish too. One clay man marked for London is necessary to finish the quest line of the Tireless Mechanic.
Polythreme's Port-Report becomes unavailable too, but this isn't really that severe.
The quest 'Warn some merchants about Wrack' has no effect, if Polythreme is destroyed, since you won't find any merchants to warn.
The Tomb-Colonist Quest for Polythreme and every other quest there was altered to continue working no matter in which state the island is.



Bugs
I spent hours and hours testing this mod and yes: There are many ways to finish it without breaking the game. Nevertheless, I didn't test every possible interaction the mod offers and even small mistakes (a wrong number, a missing requirement, etc.) might lead to a game breaking bug. I can't guarantee that this won't happen, but I'm very certain that – if worst comes to worst – we should be still able to save your game with only small changes, if you explain your problem to me. If everything fails uninstalling the mod should solve your problem (see section 'Uninstalling'). A backup off your savegame doesn't hurt either way.

If you encounter a bug – and this includes small things like a misplaced quest text or something like this – please tell me about it. This kind of feedback is the only way for this mod to become better.


Mod conflicts
'The Pirate-Poet For Polythreme' will conflict with any other mod that changes Polythreme, the quest line of the Merciless Modiste, the encounters with the Pirate-Poet or the defeat events of the Alcaeus-class vessel and the War Trimaran of the Khanate.


Uninstalling
Qualities once added to a savegame can't be easily extracted, which means that deleting the qualities.json will prevent the game from loading. However, that isn't really a problem. Newly added qualities won't have an effect on the game, if you delete the other json files of the mod.

The only qualities still affecting the game are those, that were already used in the unmoded game. Deleting the mod won't change their current values, which might break the particular quest line that uses these qualities – namely the events / quests of the Merciless Modiste and the Pirate-Poet.


Installation
Go to the game folder in your AppData. The path is usually 'C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Failbetter Games\Sunless Sea\'. Place the files in the folders 'addon' and 'images' in their equally named counterparts.

https://www.nexusmods.com/sunlesssea/mods/11


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Ship-Storage

Features:
Do you want sometimes to change your ship without losing your current one? Maybe you want just a little more storage for your next trip to the surface, a smaller crew to make a detour to the Elder Continent or to simply try out a new style without losing your vessel permanently? Well, here comes the solution!

This mod adds an event to London called "Ship-Storage" which works like this:

You store (lose) your current ship and receive a token, which allows you to get your vessel back.
In the mean time you get a Stymphalos-class Steam Launch, which is basically worthless. You can't sell them for echos and they only have 1 hull, but at least I increased their hold to 120 so you won't have to get rid of any cargo if you store your ship.
From there you can either buy a new ship or pick up your old one.



Two Versions:
There is a second version of this mod, which edits the events for the 'Leucothea-class Steam-Yacht' and the 'Cladery Heart' in a way that you won't receive the ship upon solving the quest but a token, which grants you the ability to get the particular vessel at the Ship-Storage. However, I didn't test it until now, so be careful using that version.


A few things to consider:

It is possible to buy more than one ship of a single type, but there is no reason to do so since you can only use one.
The ship storage expects a small fee (100 echos)
The Stymphalos-class Steam Launch has 120 storage places, but your new ship might not. If you change from a big ship to a smaller one then you should make sure to have not to much cargo.
The Stymphalos-class Steam Launch has only 1 crewman, which means you need to hire a new crew after you change ships.


Bugs:
This mod limits the event "UNACCEPTABLE" (the clay workers "WE ARE CLAY" leave the ship, if you have a Stymphalos-class Steam Launch) to Zee / forbids them in harbors. Otherwise one would encounter a game breaking bug, if one changes between ships too fast.


Installation
Go to the game folder in your AppData. The path is usually 'C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Failbetter Games\Sunless Sea\addon'. Place the Ship-Storage folder (the one containing 'entities') in 'addon'.

https://www.nexusmods.com/sunlesssea/mods/12


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Fight The Sunlight

Features
Sunlight smuggling is incredible time consuming since you need to click 50 times through the same events to fill all Mirrorcatch Boxes with sunlight and to get rid of all Menaces: Yearning, Burning. This mod makes all this possible with one click, but still requires the appropriate amount of resources.

For example: Sleeping in your Elegant Townhouse costs 100 echo and heals 2-3 Menaces: Yearning Burning, which means you need averagely 40 echos to cure one point of the menaces while using a townhouse. This mod offers an option to get rid of 200 Menaces for 8000 echos (there are also smaller amounts available).


Two Versions
One of the targets of this mod is it not to cheat. The new events are supposed to cost and create the same amount of resources you would have, if you did the original event 50 times in a row. This however creates a problem, since resting in a Room Above the Blind Helmsman and in a Zeeside Mansion both requires at least one terror. The Zeeside Mansion is basically useless for curing Menaces: Yearning, Burning, because it's ability to cure terror is to great: Repeat it 4-5 times and no terror is left, which means it isn't even possible in the original game to repeat the event 50 times in a row like this mod is supposed to simulate. The Room Above the Blind Helmsman's effectiveness to cure terror isn't as good, but the terror requirement still limits the possible usage to get rid of Menaces: Yearning, Buring.

I made two versions of this mod: One reflects the limitation, because of the terror requirement, and the other one doesn't. In the first mentioned version the event in London doesn't work for owners of the Zeeside Mansion and only partly for those with the Room Above the Blind Helmsman. In the second version however is no difference between the effectiveness of the locations (besides their prices of course). Which one you want to chose is for you to decide.


Installation
Go to the game folder in your AppData. The path is usually 'C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Failbetter Games\Sunless
Sea\addon'. Place the 'Fight The Sunlight' folder (the one containing 'entities') in 'addon'.

https://www.nexusmods.com/sunlesssea/mods/13


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Rebuild Aestival

Features
There is a mod out there called "Aestival Forever" who does the same, but since it is rather hard to find a working download for it, I decided to make my own. If you won the game via Aestival (and received the appropriate throphy for it) you will get the option to instantly rebuild Aestival in the next playthrough. Just choose "Investigate the Ruins" and the option will present itself. If you chose to rebuild, Aestival will instantly receive 100 estate and 80 crewmen. However, afterwards you won't be able to finish the game via Aestival in your current playthrough.


Bug
I reused one of the old qualities in the game files for this mod. It's called something like '_reuse' and might look a little odd. Just ignore it. I simply didn't feel like creating a new qualities.json simply to rename it.


Installation
Go to the game folder in your AppData. The path is usually 'C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Failbetter Games\Sunless Sea\addon'. Place the Rebuild Aestival folder (the one containing 'entities') in 'addon'.

https://www.nexusmods.com/sunlesssea/mods/14


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Job Of A Pirate

Features
Currently it is extremely hard to seize/capture a ship, because you have to kill its crew without destroying its hull. This mod simply replaces the victory through sinking your enemy with the seizing/capture event. You now always have the option to decide, if you want to sink the ship or take control over it.


Things to consider:

This doesn't work for zubmarines and the Alcaeus-class vessel, because they don't have seizing events in the original game.
Seizing requires for you to sacrifice a part of your crew to bring the concquered vessel back to London (if you defeated a pirate ship) or to Gaider's Mourn (if you defeated a neutral ship).
It is a matter of luck, if you succeed, because your crew might decide to simply vanish with the ship instead of selling it in your name.


I changed the amount of money you receive for each ship depending on the amount of crewmen you need to take control over it. My intention was to make seizing more worthwhile, but I think I got a little carried away, because it currently is somewhat overpowered. Nevertheless, I'm sure you might still enjoy it.


Installation
Go to the game folder in your AppData. The path is usually 'C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\LocalLow\Failbetter Games\Sunless Sea\addon'. Place the Job Of A Pirate folder (the one containing 'entities') in 'addon'.

https://www.nexusmods.com/sunlesssea/mods/15