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DD#99 The Phoenician and Mercenaries

Ahoy, everyone! Welcome to boarding another week's developer's diary.

During the voyage of this week's updates. We got another secret organization and new game mechanics.

The Background
The history of the Phoenicians can be dated back more than 2500 years ago in the era when all the mythology, magic, and monsters are still very real to humanity. They founded the city of Carthage and accumulated tremendous amounts of wealth from trading across the Mediterranean. However, this once magnificent civilization ended around 146 BC during the Third Punic War. The Romans sacked the city and sold almost all the inhabitants into slavery. The Romans as a long-time rival to Carthage even went as far as polluting the land to ensure Carthage can never rise again. Such is what is written in history books.

But, what if there were a fleet broke through the blockage of the Roman Navy on the Gulf of Tunis? They sailed away from their doomed city, leaving everything behind, and went as far as possible to get rid of the chasing Roman ships. They went across the seven seas, they went across different dimensions.

At least, that's what they claimed to be their origin.

Something special about Carthage is, while their citizens are mostly working in trading and the navy, they hired a large number of mercenaries to fight on land. The mercenaries were drawn from a variety of different cultures and were known for their skill and discipline on the battlefield. The combination of a powerful navy and well-trained mercenaries made Carthage a formidable military power in the ancient world. Thus, among the last survivors of ancient Carthage who were aboard those anomalous battleships were merchants and mercenaries.

Although they have no more nations, For thousands of years, they continued their trading and selling their services.

(Right, it smells just like Metal Gear. :D)

There is also no lack of their recruits. Urban legends tell the stories of strange vessels reaching ports all over the world at night, people disappearing, and never being seen again. Some may be kidnapped. Some may be part of a covert operation. But, some may be joining in the Phoenician.

After all, there are always times in our life, doubting whether we can spend our time elsewhere on an adventure to make a difference instead of getting buried by tedious repeating jobs that seem to have no tomorrow and brings no changes to the world.

Thus, before they depart, they can always find a lot of new crews, eager to join them.

Now, how that works?
* You can find Captain Hook in a humble Tea House in Egypt. He can provide you access to hire mercenaries. Those mercenaries are highly customizable just like creating your main character.

You can give them names, change their genders, and appearance, and even use a customized portrait.

* You can remove them from your group at any time. You can then find all your previously hired mercenaries in a bank where you can add them back to your group again.

* Each mercenary gain 5 points of attribution at every level, allowing you to further customize their abilities and specialties to suit your needs.

* There is an infinite amount of mercenaries you can hire.

* You can purchase a Pocket Merc-Service Device to gain access to mercenary service anywhere in the global. Your mercenaries can be deployed to you anywhere and anytime!

Sounds good? But, let's not just stop here!
Did I mention the Ships of Phoenicians can go across different dimensions?
It shall take no effort to allow your mercenaries to join the fight in another paralleled universe!
You can export all the male/female/tall/short/heavy/slim mercenaries you've hired and trained in January/February/March/April/May/June/July/August/September/October/November/December to external files located at the same place as your save files! (Which are also synced by the Steam Cloud now!)
You can then import them back to your mercenary bank to be added to your group!
You can even do that to your main characters, exporting them as mercenaries to help another one or the same main characters of yours in another adventure! Old soldiers never die, they just go on another adventure in another story.
There may be an infinite amount of you in all different dimensions. You are now never alone for you are the legion all by yourself!
You now have the power just like this guy:

Dirty Deeds can now truly be Done Dirt Cheap. :)

I once lived in the old glorious days when RPGs still can have their characters exported/imported just like this. I've played games like Neverwinter Night and the very first Mount and Blade. But, now, even the best RPGs such as Pathfinder lack this feature. A pity. They may have their reasons for balance while I seek freedom. The game is yours to play. I hope you can do whatever you see fit to enjoy yourself and create your own story.

Some other cool stuff.
It has been a while since I add new playable female character variations.
So here we are:

It's quite often that we find such an intelligent girl in any school around the world, usually with short hair and glasses. I know I once know one. :)

As one of the most cat-loving people in the world, it will be quite strange that we don't have cats in Egypt. Thus, this problem has been fixed.


That's for this week. Have fun with your fully customizable mercenary warband. :)


Today's changelog:
##########Content############
[Furniture]Added a new bookshelf variation.
[Furniture]Added a new smelter variation.
[Commodity Market]The furniture vendors now sell those new types of furniture.
[Commodity Market]The furniture vendors now sell smelters.
[Furniture]Updated all the old smelter furniture to have new functions. (If such furniture has been deployed in the previous version, you may need to pick them up and redeploy them to update its content.)
[Furniture]Unified the item generate code of smelter furniture, reduced duplicated code.
[The Grand Library]Added a 3D printer in the Reading Room.

Update, Version 20221208


English
#####Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap############
[Mercenary System]You can now export your mercenaries to be used elsewhere.
[Mercenary System]You can now export your main character as a mercenary to be used elsewhere.
[Mercenary System]You can import your exported mercenaries to be your companions in your current world.
[Mercenary System]You cannot transfer equipment this way. Only the characters will be transferred.
[Mercenary System]Exporting characters is free while importing them costs some money (in-game currency, we have no IAP) to avoid this system being abused. (It's still very overpowered.)
[Mercenary System]It will not cost you anything if the process to import a character fails.
##########System########################
[Steam]Steam Cloud shall now sync your configuration file.
[Steam]Steam Cloud shall now sync your merc files.
[Character]Added a function to quickly clear a character's equipment.
简体中文
#####Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap############
【佣兵系统】你现在可以导出你的佣兵,让他们在别的地方可以被使用。
【佣兵系统】你可以把自己的主角导出为一个佣兵,让其在别的地方可以被使用。
【佣兵系统】你可以导入你之前导出的佣兵,使之可以成为你当前世界中的同伴。
【佣兵系统】你无法通过这种方式复制他们身上的装备。但是,你可以较为自由的复制角色。
【佣兵系统】导出角色免费,导入角色会花费一些游戏内的金钱。(实际上,这个系统还是强到变态。)
【佣兵系统】如果导入角色失败则不会产生开销。
##########System########################
【Steam】Steam的云端存储现在会同步你的游戏配置文件。
【Steam】Steam的云端存储现在会同步你的佣兵文件。
【角色系统】加入了一个快速清理角色身上装备的函数。

Update, Version 20221207


English
##########Content############
[Mercenary System]Reduced the cost of hiring a mercenary from Captain Hook. (50000 -> 12000)
[Mercenary System]New item: Portable Merc-Service. A quite expensive device that allows you to get access to the mercenary service anywhere in the global.
[Mercenary System]Captain Hook now sells the Portable Merc-Service.
[Character Customization]Added 1 new playable female character variation.
简体中文
##########Content############
【佣兵系统】降低了从虎克船长那里雇佣佣兵的开销。 (50000 -> 12000)
【佣兵系统】新物品:口袋佣兵服务。一种昂贵的设备,允许你在世界上任何地方获得佣兵服务。
【佣兵系统】虎克船长现在贩卖口袋佣兵服务。
【角色自定义】加入了一个新的可用的女性角色造型。

Update, Version 20221206


English
##########Content############
[Mercenary System]You can now hire mercenaries from Captain Hamilcar Hook.
[Mercenary System]All mercenaries are highly customizable just like creating your main character. That means you can use any image as their portrait. (Customize them to whoever you want. We all have people to remember.)
[Mercenary System]They gain 5 attribution points at every level that you can allocate freely. Their initial attributions are slightly randomized.
[Mercenary System]There is an infinite amount of mercenaries you can hire. When you remove them from your group. They return to a bank. You can add them back to your group when you visit the mercenary service again.
[Mercenary System]You can copy your current faith to the mercenaries you hired.
[Mercenary System]You can edit your mercenaries literally at any time from the menu.
[Phoenician]You can now ask Captain Hamilcar Hook about the secret organization of the Phoenician.
##########DEBUG#############
[Window_CommandlimitwinPP]Fixed all instances of Class Window_CommandlimitwinPP and its children do not have cursor display correctly. It's caused by a bypass in its update function. The fix is to call its super's super function. (Another crazy way of programming. I don't know how I wrote it back then.)
简体中文
##########Content############
【佣兵系统】你现在可以从哈米尔卡·虎克船长那里雇佣雇佣兵。
【佣兵系统】所有雇佣兵可以高度自定义,和你的主角一样,由护照系统生成。于是,你可以用任何图片自定义他们的头像。(你可以把他们变成你想要的任何人,毕竟我们都有要去记住的人。)
【佣兵系统】他们每升1级有5点属性点,可以自由分配。他们的初始属性有一定的随机性。
【佣兵系统】你可以雇佣无限的佣兵。当他们离开队伍的时候,他们会回到佣兵名单中,你可以在此后访问佣兵服务的时候让他们重新加入。
【佣兵系统】你可以把你当前的信仰复制给他们。
【佣兵系统】你可以在菜单中编辑你雇佣的佣兵,没有任何限制。
【凤凰军团】你现在可以询问哈米尔卡·虎克船长关于凤凰军团这个组织的事情。
##########DEBUG#############
[Window_CommandlimitwinPP]修复了Window_CommandlimitwinPP类及其子类的实例均存在光标显示不正常的Bug。造成原因是在Update中未调用父类方法。处理方案是直接调用其祖父类方法。(又是一种凶残的编程方式。鬼知道我当时是怎么写的代码。)

Update, Version 20221204


English
##########Content############
[Butterfly]Butterfly Wings now work in the Sanctuary Cave of Bazaar. (For lazy people who want to chain jump all the way from Egypt to the gateway in the Bazaar. :D)
[Character Customization]The male SWAT appearance can now be used when making new characters or editing existing ones.
##########System#############
[Mouse]Greatly increased the performance of the Mouse Wheel and reduced the lag caused by it. (We are now using WIN32API GetMessage instead of PeekMessage)
[Legal]Added a small tool to calculate the standard lawyer's fee in Shanghai. (I am too lazy to write a separate software. On the good side, I can force everybody in my law firm to play my game. :P)
[Mercenary System]Some progress in code has been made across the Passport Scene, Game Party data structure, Procedurally Generated Item GC, and new UIs. (Still working in progress.)
简体中文
##########Content############
【蝴蝶】蝴蝶之翼现在在巴扎的庇护洞穴中可以使用。(为懒人使用,理论上可以从埃及各地一路跳到巴扎的大门。)
【角色自定义】男性SWAT造型现在可以在创造新角色或编辑已有角色时使用。
##########System#############
【鼠标】大幅提高了鼠标滚轮的效率并且降低了鼠标滚轮导致的卡顿。(现在我们使用WIN32API中的GetMessage 而非PeekMessage)
【法律】加入了一个计算上海市律师收费一般费率的工具。(因为偷懒的缘故,所以没有单独写的软件。好消息是,这样的话可以强迫律所的别的律师来玩这个游戏。:P)
【佣兵系统】一些代码上的工作完成,包括了护照场景、队伍数据结构,动态生成物品的回收机制,新界面。(仍然在施工中。)