Having a problem running maps, and maybe a final solution.

[Tijer]

Hello and thank you for allowing me to join. I found your game through the Python games listed on Sourceforge. Thus I do not have any of the original content from the TTD CD, but I have installed the three OPN files as requested.

Currently as best I can tell I am running OPENTTD Version r22637. This is from the download, not the self compiled, which may be the problem. OS is XP.

Through trial and error, I have discovered that some maps require specific NewGrfs and others will use whatever is available. Part of the problem is Newgrfs have to be loaded in a particular order so as to be active. This order is discovered through trial and error, as many of the maps do not tell you this. As well, many of the maps are stored all over the internet, and are really not monitored or supported.

The problem started when I added the Southeast US map. Then I went on to play the Bayside map without issue, that I know of. However, Big River is having issues. I am getting the "Load Multiple Train Sets" error. Before anyone asks, Advanced Settings>Trains>Enable Multiple NewGrf Engine Sets is on and Green. So where do I go from here?

Another problem that I have ran into is finding information on this site, and it's relevance. For instance, a search of the error message above resulted in 2 pages of quires with the last in Sept of 2010. Probably not relevant. Next was the loading to many NewGRFs error, which produced 8 pages of quires only to find a patch that I must compile the game to use. Other then that no relevant data was available. Since MSVS and I are not good friends, this leaves me with the choice to just deactivate NewGRFs or pass on the map. TTRSv3.11w was a bear to find. I would like to point out, that some searches returned over 100 pages of quires. No, I do not think I want to play this game that bad. The thing is I have seen this situation before, and it is quite common in forums. The active members of the forum know where the info is located, and can not explain why the person asking can not see it. The person asking is frustrated when they ask, do to the fact that searching on PHP is a pain. It only store so many recent requests, and after that it becomes brain dead. It took 3 attempts to get the search engine to return anything for the train set error. One would think that by searching for the error message as written from the game, something should have showed the first time. No such luck. Google search is really no better due to the spam results that come from Google.

I recall on one of my search adventures running in to a thread having to do with "Is OTTD becoming to complex?", or something like that. Well swapping NewGRFs, when you have no idea what you are swapping, can make it complex. Then to have them in a particular order is can add to it. From past experience with other games, this is a quick way to kill off new players. Something that I feel is not good for any game. Therefore, I am proposing KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Unfortunately, KISS is not 100% fool proof, but nothing is.

Now to the suggestion of a possible solution to NewGRFs loading verses maps selected. Is there anyway for the game to use the NewGRFS from a database instead of just loading the first 63 and ignoring the rest? The Idea is for the game to load all the NewGrfs needed to play the map so long as they are in the database. If they are not in the database, then it adds the required NewGrfs to the online update and tells the player to check content. Update is automatic. To show the point I submit the following:

NewGRF List.png

(74.62 KiB) Downloaded 1 time

As to which are good, bad or useless, I do not know. Which are built on others, I also do not know. Which need the old version to run the new version also a mystery. Which maps need what. also do not know. But it does not take one much to see that almost 70% are ignored. If the map could tell the game engine which are needed, then the number in the database would not be important. Much of the problems people have would be self correcting.

I am not a programmer, just a player. I do work in Blender, but the game I mod uses low poly UV skins in NIF format. Nothing like what you have here. When I have a problem, I try to come up with a solution so others do not have the same problem. I have discovered that many that have problems do not ask for help, they uninstall. That appears to fix all problems with the game, but it does not help in the game development.

Thank you in advance for your concern in this matter.

Be Safe!

Tijer

[Eddi]

i don't know what the hell that picture is, or which map you were loading there, but all maps created in the last ~4 years contain the information which NewGRFs were loaded in which order, and when loading this game they will automatically be activated, so long you have them downloaded before. you do not have to add them to the newgrf settings manually.

[Transportman]

Hello and thank you for allowing me to join. I found your game through the Python games listed on Sourceforge. Thus I do not have any of the original content from the TTD CD, but I have installed the three OPN files as requested.

Currently as best I can tell I am running OPENTTD Version r22637. This is from the download, not the self compiled, which may be the problem. OS is XP.

Through trial and error, I have discovered that some maps require specific NewGrfs and others will use whatever is available. Part of the problem is Newgrfs have to be loaded in a particular order so as to be active. This order is discovered through trial and error, as many of the maps do not tell you this. As well, many of the maps are stored all over the internet, and are really not monitored or supported.

Scenario's have the list of NewGRF's they need included in the data and will try to download them from the online content system.

The problem started when I added the Southeast US map. Then I went on to play the Bayside map without issue, that I know of. However, Big River is having issues. I am getting the "Load Multiple Train Sets" error. Before anyone asks, Advanced Settings>Trains>Enable Multiple NewGrf Engine Sets is on and Green. So where do I go from here?

Is the setting also green in the game if you play the scenario? Because the settings are also saved inside save games, it might be possible it is red in the scenario, despite it being green in the main menu.

Another problem that I have ran into is finding information on this site, and it's relevance. For instance, a search of the error message above resulted in 2 pages of quires with the last in Sept of 2010. Probably not relevant. Next was the loading to many NewGRFs error, which produced 8 pages of quires only to find a patch that I must compile the game to use. Other then that no relevant data was available. Since MSVS and I are not good friends, this leaves me with the choice to just deactivate NewGRFs or pass on the map. TTRSv3.11w was a bear to find. I would like to point out, that some searches returned over 100 pages of quires. No, I do not think I want to play this game that bad. The thing is I have seen this situation before, and it is quite common in forums. The active members of the forum know where the info is located, and can not explain why the person asking can not see it. The person asking is frustrated when they ask, do to the fact that searching on PHP is a pain. It only store so many recent requests, and after that it becomes brain dead. It took 3 attempts to get the search engine to return anything for the train set error. One would think that by searching for the error message as written from the game, something should have showed the first time. No such luck. Google search is really no better due to the spam results that come from Google.

And how about limiting Google to this forum and the OpenTTD site? The forum search screen also has the option to use Google Search. I do admit that searching the forums is sometimes very difficult, but it is a bit of a chicken-egg problem. People not searching and just opening topics, getting replies to use the search, but because of that people that search later, get only the "use the search" posts.

I recall on one of my search adventures running in to a thread having to do with "Is OTTD becoming to complex?", or something like that. Well swapping NewGRFs, when you have no idea what you are swapping, can make it complex. Then to have them in a particular order is can add to it. From past experience with other games, this is a quick way to kill off new players. Something that I feel is not good for any game. Therefore, I am proposing KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Unfortunately, KISS is not 100% fool proof, but nothing is.

KISS is nice, but I miss a little bit of KISS here. What is a quick way to kill off new players? NewGRF changing during the game has been disabled since some time, so that doesn't make things complex...

Now to the suggestion of a possible solution to NewGRFs loading verses maps selected. Is there anyway for the game to use the NewGRFS from a database instead of just loading the first 63 and ignoring the rest? The Idea is for the game to load all the NewGrfs needed to play the map so long as they are in the database. If they are not in the database, then it adds the required NewGrfs to the online update and tells the player to check content. Update is automatic. To show the point I submit the following:

See my point somewhere before, the online content system is accessed to search for missing NewGRF's upon loading a scenario. Or do you want to say something else here?

As to which are good, bad or useless, I do not know. Which are built on others, I also do not know. Which need the old version to run the new version also a mystery. Which maps need what. also do not know. But it does not take one much to see that almost 70% are ignored. If the map could tell the game engine which are needed, then the number in the database would not be important. Much of the problems people have would be self correcting.

The NewGRF menu gives a reason why it doesn't load a NewGRF, just select it and there will be an error message somewhere saying what is wrong. Also, your screenshot has multiple NewGRF's that will certainly have conflicts (multiple industry NewGRF's for example.

I am not a programmer, just a player. I do work in Blender, but the game I mod uses low poly UV skins in NIF format. Nothing like what you have here. When I have a problem, I try to come up with a solution so others do not have the same problem. I have discovered that many that have problems do not ask for help, they uninstall. That appears to fix all problems with the game, but it does not help in the game development.

Thank you in advance for your concern in this matter.

Be Safe!

Tijer

I hope a understood your post well enough, otherwise I might have been telling complete nonsense here.

[FooBar]

First: welcome to the forums

I am getting the "Load Multiple Train Sets" error. Before anyone asks, Advanced Settings>Trains>Enable Multiple NewGrf Engine Sets is on and Green.

That is probably from a NewGRF that does not allow the multiple engine sets setting to be active.

Next was the loading to many NewGRFs error

You may activate somewhere around 64 NewGRFs to be used in a game.

TTRSv3.11w was a bear to find.

It's on the content-download.

Google search is really no better due to the spam results that come from Google.

What helps here is to limit your google search to a certain website, for instance by adding site:tt-forums.net to the query.

Well swapping NewGRFs, when you have no idea what you are swapping, can make it complex.

Start by playing a number of random games, with only some NewGRFs selected that sound interesting to you. Switch some (or all) between random maps. That way you can get familiar with (some) of the NewGRFs out there, figure out which you like and which you don't.

In addition to Eddi's comment, it might be useful if you would upload a map that you're having problems with, so that we can have a look.

[Tijer]

That post is what is active and what is not in NewGRFs. The green I believe are active, and the red are ignored. If only the NewGRFs that were needed to run a map were loaded, then I would not be getting a "A Fatal NewGRF Error has occured: Please enable multiple newgrf engine sets." error message. The image I provided is a list that I got from the in game NewGRF settings menu. The map here is Big River (1.1). This was after I moved some of the NewGRFs. Namely the ECS Town Vector set to the top of the ECS list. I get the same error from the Rusty Paradise (v1.0) map.

Should I just delete all the NewGRFs I have and reload from the Nightly or what? Please advise.

Be Safe!

Tijer

PS I am going to post this anyway, only because some of the questions you ask are answered. I will add additional info in my next post.

[FooBar]

It seems that the two scenario's are also available from the content download. I tried both, and they work fine without any NewGRFs selected.

What happened is that you tried to activate all NewGRFs available from the content download. That will never work. Apart from the hard limit of 63, some NewGRFs are just not designed to work together (most will disable themselves if they encounter incompatibilities).

What surprises me with these scenarios is that they load NewGRFs configured in the main menu. And that breaks the scenario horribly when for instance adding an industry set. That is not a fault on your side, but a fault on the side of the scenario, or maybe even a fault on the game's side.

Either way, the "Play Scenario" window informs you that those particular scenarios use no NewGRFs. If you follow that advice, the scenario will work as intended by its creator. So if you remove all active NewGRFs from the NewGRF Settings window, the scenarios will work fine.

EDIT: some further investigation shows that those particular scenarios are very old (savegame version 13). I don't find it particularly smart that the game loads whatever NewGRF you have configured in the main menu. I will be submitting an official bugreport for that.
EDIT2: FS#4685

[Tijer]

From Transportman:

Quote:
The problem started when I added the Southeast US map. Then I went on to play the Bayside map without issue, that I know of. However, Big River is having issues. I am getting the "Load Multiple Train Sets" error. Before anyone asks, Advanced Settings>Trains>Enable Multiple NewGrf Engine Sets is on and Green. So where do I go from here?

Is the setting also green in the game if you play the scenario? Because the settings are also saved inside save games, it might be possible it is red in the scenario, despite it being green in the main menu.

I checked the Advanced setting in the game, and they were indeed off. Ironically, this produced this message when activated. "A newgrf error has occurred: Xz+??(?Meo?v". Personally, I think the game should not use profanity, LOL!, but I have no idea what it wants now.

Quote:
Another problem that I have ran into is finding information on this site, and it's relevance. For instance, a search of the error message above resulted in 2 pages of quires with the last in Sept of 2010. Probably not relevant. Next was the loading to many NewGRFs error, which produced 8 pages of quires only to find a patch that I must compile the game to use. Other then that no relevant data was available. Since MSVS and I are not good friends, this leaves me with the choice to just deactivate NewGRFs or pass on the map. TTRSv3.11w was a bear to find. I would like to point out, that some searches returned over 100 pages of quires. No, I do not think I want to play this game that bad. The thing is I have seen this situation before, and it is quite common in forums. The active members of the forum know where the info is located, and can not explain why the person asking can not see it. The person asking is frustrated when they ask, do to the fact that searching on PHP is a pain. It only store so many recent requests, and after that it becomes brain dead. It took 3 attempts to get the search engine to return anything for the train set error. One would think that by searching for the error message as written from the game, something should have showed the first time. No such luck. Google search is really no better due to the spam results that come from Google.

And how about limiting Google to this forum and the OpenTTD site? The forum search screen also has the option to use Google Search. I do admit that searching the forums is sometimes very difficult, but it is a bit of a chicken-egg problem. People not searching and just opening topics, getting replies to use the search, but because of that people that search later, get only the "use the search" posts.

The point of the comment, is that looking for information on the forum is that much of the info is out of date for the version currently supported. However, the searcher has no way of knowing. There have been many revision to the program, and those who have not been active in the site, have no way of knowing what is relevent to what version. The simple fact is, I hate hunting for info on forums. Ones with threads as long as these are, make it all the harder. The time between versions is not constant. So in many cases, stuff posted from a year ago is probably useless.

Quote:
I recall on one of my search adventures running in to a thread having to do with "Is OTTD becoming to complex?", or something like that. Well swapping NewGRFs, when you have no idea what you are swapping, can make it complex. Then to have them in a particular order is can add to it. From past experience with other games, this is a quick way to kill off new players. Something that I feel is not good for any game. Therefore, I am proposing KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Unfortunately, KISS is not 100% fool proof, but nothing is.

KISS is nice, but I miss a little bit of KISS here. What is a quick way to kill off new players? NewGRF changing during the game has been disabled since some time, so that doesn't make things complex...

New players for the most part will not ask questions. More times then not, they will just uninstall and move on, figuring that the program is just not ready. That is what I mean about a new player killer. As for the other comment, if everything is up to date, and all the maps were checked, then players would not get error messages like I did. KISS would have the map checked to make sure the maps that are available as part of content download did not require newgrf to be turned on and off in game play or changing settings.

While I understand checking stuff is a pain, I would like to point out that at the other forum we had to rebuild over 100 maps to make them KISS. As a result, we were accused of stealing maps and butchering others work. But as a result of our work, we have kept a game alive and new content is still being made for it after 5 years. Maps are now almost 200. All we did was keep the game from loading every model for every map when only a few were needed. In some cases, we added a building to work as a distribution center instead of using the default smelter from the game. Nothing that changed gameplay other then the map would not crash out for the lack of RAM.

In this case all the maps have to work as designed out of the box. To expect a newbie to switch things on and off only causes problems.

Quote:
Now to the suggestion of a possible solution to NewGRFs loading verses maps selected. Is there anyway for the game to use the NewGRFS from a database instead of just loading the first 63 and ignoring the rest? The Idea is for the game to load all the NewGrfs needed to play the map so long as they are in the database. If they are not in the database, then it adds the required NewGrfs to the online update and tells the player to check content. Update is automatic. To show the point I submit the following:

See my point somewhere before, the online content system is accessed to search for missing NewGRF's upon loading a scenario. Or do you want to say something else here?

All I can say here is that I had to go looking for the TTRSw3.11?, which I believe I found on the creators bananas site. No portion of it showed up in the current content download.

Quote:
As to which are good, bad or useless, I do not know. Which are built on others, I also do not know. Which need the old version to run the new version also a mystery. Which maps need what. also do not know. But it does not take one much to see that almost 70% are ignored. If the map could tell the game engine which are needed, then the number in the database would not be important. Much of the problems people have would be self correcting.

The NewGRF menu gives a reason why it doesn't load a NewGRF, just select it and there will be an error message somewhere saying what is wrong. Also, your screenshot has multiple NewGRF's that will certainly have conflicts (multiple industry NewGRF's for example.

I guess the issue here is how is a new player suppose to know? From what I have read in the forum, things in one newGRF can effect others. So which ones effect what and how? Is it an effect that was intentional or not? At the same time who says that it will always show a problem. I have read posts here where the problem did not show up until a particular item was used. So how can some one know without spending 3 days hunting the forums here?

I am running Windows here not Linix. If it were not for Errors, Windows would never run. LOL! As well, Windows is the only virus that you pay for. HAHAHA! So where do I go from here?

From Foobar:

Tijer wrote:
Well swapping NewGRFs, when you have no idea what you are swapping, can make it complex.

Start by playing a number of random games, with only some NewGRFs selected that sound interesting to you. Switch some (or all) between random maps. That way you can get familiar with (some) of the NewGRFs out there, figure out which you like and which you don't.

My point here is, while I may do this, many will not. As well how is any newbie suppose to know who will get along and who will not in the case of NewGRF. I have already seen where one gets the comment that the selected newGRF is incompatible. What it does not say is who it is not compatable with. I believe that comment provided was something like Incompatible with current configuration, but next time I will make a note of the comment the next time I get it.

As well I want to thank you for finding a problem with those maps. is there any more that are that old that are part of the content download?


The point here is that Eddi mentions that any map less then 4 years old should be fine. These 2 are version 13, which tells me that they are more then 4 years old, I guess. So how does a newbie know this? Open question, not directed at anyone.

Thank you and Be Safe!

Tijer

[Eddi]

we have no way of retroactively fixing old maps. they are there, they must be kept compatible somehow. and "load them without any newgrfs" is not a solution either, because newgrfs existed back then, so they might have used them. forcefully disabling newgrfs in that case will also break things. there is no solution that fits all people.

[Tijer]

In searching for answers in the forum, I read several times that one newGRF could change the config on something on another newGRF. If that is the case, then what has happen is something is the same in both newGRFs. Are the same model names used on different models? If so, do they have to be?

EDIT: Or would it be better to refer to the issue as industry tweaks? One changes it for one map, then another changes it for another map. This goes on leaving all the older map broke. Would making the parts map specific clear this problem. Sorry, I am just asking. What I am used to is XML. Where the industry calls up it's model and any secondary models. You have high/low for prices, Industry names etc.....

I guess I will have to load and look at these things. I guess a hex editor is used, or is there a specific program is used.

Sorry, I do not mean to be stubborn, it is just my nature. LOL!

Be Safe!

[planetmaker]

In searching for answers in the forum, I read several times that one newGRF could change the config on something on another newGRF. If that is the case, then what has happen is something is the same in both newGRFs. Are the same model names used on different models? If so, do they have to be?

EDIT: Or would it be better to refer to the issue as industry tweaks? One changes it for one map, then another changes it for another map. This goes on leaving all the older map broke.

Simply speaking, OpenTTD has the concept of default items (vehicles, industries, houses, stations, etc...). NewGRFs can choose to modify the default items and in most cases they can also choose to add new items. When two NewGRFs try to modify the same default item that may either be intended or accidential, thus the result may be desired or undesired and conflicting.

OpenTTD has (and hardly can have) no way of knowing that such cross-talk is intended or not, so there's not really much one can do on the programme's side to decide whether to allow it or not. Even as careful NewGRF author I may check for other NewGRFs active concurrently and display an error message if a NewGRF conflicting with my NewGRF is found - but of course I cannot check for yet-not-written NewGRFs.

Btw, NewGRF specs are found here: http://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/Main_Page and are written in NFO directly or NML.

EDIT: some further investigation shows that those particular scenarios are very old (savegame version 13). I don't find it particularly smart that the game loads whatever NewGRF you have configured in the main menu. I will be submitting an official bugreport for that.
EDIT2: FS#4685

Hm.... maybe we should forbid to upload scenarios of a savegame type which doesn't save NewGRFs within a map. An easy fix would be to properly load the scenario and re-save it so that works out of the box with modern OpenTTD versions instead of the hassle to manually first configure the NewGRFs and then load the scenario.

[Tijer]

Kind of the same problem we had. In our case, windows only used the version with the most current date on the XML. Fix a map today while at the same time breaking the one you fixed yesterday. Good for job security, by the pay sucked. LOL! Not to mention the Doctor bills from pulling all your hair out, not to mention the medication. HAHA!

As for solving the problem, it sounds like the best solution is to save in the map. As well to require all new map be saved in the same way before they are posted for download. It would be a shame to loose a good map just because someone over wrote the original script and broke the map. Stand Alone Maps are usually the best maps since dependencies if any are minimal.

Thank you and Be Safe!

Tijer