Problem Loading Jim Powers' Scenarios (From Scenario Forum)

[Andibevan]

I'm having problems loading the scenarios here. When I load one of the scenarios in this thread with the latest version of openttd (0.6.0 and 0.6.1-rc1) the program just hangs and does nothing.

Do the scenarios only work with the original transport tycoon? Any suggestions why they don't work?

TIA

Andy

[Draakon]

These scenarios work with TTDPatch only. So your out of luck. You could get like a r8000 and save the scenario you want to play in that revision and then load the in the version you like.

[Ar4i]

Generally all the problems with playing mr. Jim Powers excellent scenarios come from the NewGRFs he is useing, the trick is to make industries work, everything else is just graphics. From 0.6.0 OpenTTD has pretty good NewGRF support and you can use almost all NewGRFs exactly the same way as in TTDPatch, where by the way I've also had similar troubles with some of the scenarios as in OpenTTD because of missing and/or different versions NewGRFs. I've had problems getting the industries to load properly from a scenarios that probably use different versions of GRFs and/or too many industry related GRFs loaded in unknown order. For example I would get weird looking and industries (also in TTDPatch) in some of the scenarios.

So, some of the scenarios work just fine with OpenTTD providing that you can find all the necessary newGRFs. Before playing them it is reccomended to open them in the scenario editor then check if the industries look ok, if they are ok just clean up the missing GRFs from the list of GRFs the scenario uses, hit apply and save as new scenario something like [scenario name]-OpenTTD and then just start a new game.
The reason why the game does nothing upon starting is because it would pause because of the missing NewGRFs and after you hit unpause several times it will ask whether you are sure to that you want to play w/o them. I would also suggest using the latest nightly because it has some little fixes over 0.6.0 and a bit better support for some NewGRFs.

[Draakon]

I'm sorry but if the above statement is true, why can i load any scenario from the first post listing without any problems in game except the in game red error you get when some newgrfs are missing or so.

[Ar4i]

I can't understand your question... you can load, or can't load? Do you get any error? Did you try to load the scenario in scenario editor and save it from there BEFORE trying to start a new game with it as I said in my post above?

[Draakon]

I said i can load, but everyone will get an error: Missing NewGRF files.

[Sir Bob]

Well obviously you get the error message because you're missing NewGRF's that Jim used when he created the scenario.

[Draakon]

But if you do know what NewGRFs have been used you still get the error because OpenTTD can't detect some NewGRFs that has been loaded if it is a TTDPatch scenario/savegame.

[Ar4i]

It doesn't matter whether you have or you don't have all the GRFs needed for the scenario, you can still play it if you want to the only real problem is that you might get your industries messed up and end up with a an iron mine called fishing grounds and things like that. The message about missing GRFs won't stop you from playing.
By the way mr. Jim Powers scenarios sadly doesn't have any information about the used NewGRFs in them, so I don't know a way to find the exact list of used GRFs not to mention about the exact version of those GRFs because using newer can also cause troubles sometimes.

I can't confirm that OpenTTD would fail to load NewGRFs that TTDPatch will. The GRFs that cannot be found will come with some strange error message mentioning TTDPatch gamesave, which might give this kind of impression, but my assumption is that the message is somehow misleading.

From my experience so far it seems that OpenTTD would load all GRFs that could be found as have been used in the scenario (same GRFID). It seems though that many GRFs used are some old versions and sometimes their authors would even change GRFIDs when making major changes also sometimes there are changes in GRFs that make loading games saved with old versions of the same GRFs to not load properly.

If anyone could be able to reproduce a case where a scenario would load normally in TTDPatch and not load in OpenTTD in a case where both installations have ALL the SAME NewGRFs then we might post it as bug report and ask devs to take a look at it.


BTW Draakon if you provide the scenario you are trying to play and a list /or even a zip/ of NewGRFs needed (or ones you have) then I and maybe some others might try to help.

[Jim Powers]

Dear OTTD Fans;

Sorry to be slow at addressing these 'inputs', but, I'm trying to move. OK, since I make my scenarios and play only TTDP, I can't test my scenarios, obviously, in OTTD. But, if you'll request which scenarios you need the grf and cfg files, then I'll do all I can to find them for you, bearing in mind that some of the older scenarios grf and cfg files may not be available. Anyway, if I can help, let me know. The next few weeks I'll be moving from Israel to Key West, Florida, so be patient if I don't get right back to you.

The reason I make scenarios is for as many TTD players as possible may enjoy the scenarios I share. Thank you for playing my scenarios. Long live TTD!

Always,
Jim Powers

[Draakon]

Jim, no hurries needed mate. Like i said, they do work on OpenTTD, you just need the NewGRFs and maybe rebuilding industries. However, the first scenarios don't seem to work on new versions of OpenTTD, because old loader has errors with those. But, take an older revisions of trunk, load from it, save it and then load with a version you are playing currently. And lastly, if you do know what NewGRFs are being used, the game might not detect them all.

[Ar4i]

Each NewGRF has GRFID in it. A list of GRFIDs is stored in the savegame/scenario. OpenTTD will search for a GRF file that has GRFID equal to ones found in the savegame and load those GRFs that have been found. So basically to not be able to detect a GRF that has been used for sure then maybe the author has changed this GRFID in a new version because of some major/critical changes that probably made some conflicts using new version with games that was created using old version (or some other reason). In this case the TTDPatch would also be unable to load this GRFs and the only solution would be finding that particular old version.