Transport Tycoon Forums

This is an announcement-only topic. I'll anounce new alpha versions here, and what changes there were in the new versions. I'll also change the thread topic to match the most recent alpha version.

For discussion, questions, comments, bug reports etc., please go here.

Yes, not even a week after releasing 2.0, development has begun on the next version of TTDPatch, and I've released 2.0.1 alpha 1, as usual in the source code directory: http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/

In addition to making many experimental features "real" features (see below), there are several new ones. Oskar has added a new "enhancegui" feature: transparent station signs. Instead of a solid colour sign with black texts, the game will show station signs as simply the text without a sign. You can turn this on with bit 4 (value 16) for "enhancegui".

Csaba has introduced a new way of calculating the performance score of vehicles based on their profit, which can be enabled with "newperformance on" (-Xp). More details can be found in his message to the general mailing list at http://lists.ttdpatch.net/ttdpatch/200309/msg00010.html .

Another great feature by Csaba allows you to have the vehicle lists sorted by various properties, such as age, profit, consist number and so on. Enable it with "sortvehlist on" (-Xv), and change the sort order by clicking on the new bottom right button in the vehicle list window.

Enjoy!

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 1 (October 3, 2003):

• fix bug in windows loader (could show "TTDPatch nlp" error message)
• by Marcin: make compatible with NASM 0.98.37
• include updated NASM 0.98.37 in the nasm/ directory (thanks Marcin)
• embedded files (euro and new transparent colour tables) moved to embedded/ directory
• by Oskar: new enhancegui bit 4 (value 16) to show transparent station signs
• split experimentalfeatures into separate switches; now they are `showprofitinlist' (-XL), `newspapercolour' (-XN) and `sharedorders' (-XO) and new miscmods bit 12 (value 4096) to not show company finances on Jan 1st
• included changes from Csaba's 20b6vcs version:
  
  • new performance calculation regarding vehicle profit with `newperformance on' (-Xp)
  • sort vehicle lists by various properties with `sortvehlist on' (-Xv)
  • change "Delete" button in order menu to "Reset" with shared orders when no order is selected
  • change "Full Load" button to "Service" for depot orders

I've released alpha 2, as usual at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/ .

Csaba has contributed a fix for the game slowing down so much when the vehicle list is sorted. Now it should be much faster, but may still be somewhat slow on older computers with lots of vehicles. He also fixed the crash when clicking on "new vehicles" in the sorted window. Finally, he gave `newspapercolour' a parameter which sets the year in which newspapers begin to be released in colour.

I've also fixed two bugs myself, which I accidentally introduced when splitting the experimentalfeatures for alpha 1. Now, miscmods 4096 is no longer required for the shared orders feature to work, and instead it really prevents the finances window from appearing every January 1st. I've also introduced a new sort order, the cargo type.

There were some questions about what experimental features the alpha versions have currently. At this point, only bits 0 and 1 are in use, and they have the same meaning as in 2.0. See http://www.ttdpatch.net/Manual/Experime ... tures.html for more information. The other bits referenced in the manual have become their own separate switches.

Finally, I've made some changes to the new graphics set being offered on the New Graphics page (http://www.ttdpatch.net/newgrf.html). Now, Adam Kadlubek's Tropic Set and George's Long vehicles are available for download from there. They've also been integrated into the all(w).zip downloads, but to conserve my bandwidth use, please don't download those again if you only need the two new files. Or you can download them from one of the mirrors, or even the edonkey/emule/overnet file sharing networks.

Because the current title savegame activates the tropicset by default, and therefore some trains behave strangely (like the Diesel engines emitting steam), I've made a new title.dat that does not activate the tropicset. You can get it at http://www.ttdpatch.net/title.zip (110 KB). Just unzip it into your TTD folder and overwrite the existing title.dat file.

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 2 (October 8, 2003):

• by Csaba: improve speed of sorted vehicle lists
• by Csaba: newspapercolour now takes a parameter: the year in which newspapers appear in colour (default 2000)
• by Csaba: fix crash when clicking on "new vehicles" in sorted vehicle list
• fix miscmods 4096 being required for shared orders
• now it's really miscmods 4096 that turns off the yearly finance window
• new sort order: cargo type

Alpha two totally broke shared orders: the reset/delete button won't work right.

Csaba has posted a version without this bug at http://www.csucsposta.hu/csaboka/ttdpatch/

Hi all,

I've released 2.0.1 alpha 3 at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/

I think this time I've *really* fixed the sharedorders bug with the delete/reset button not working correctly. Sorry that it took so many tries to get it right...

Otherwise, I've added a couple more bug fixes, the most important one fixing a crash in the Windows version, particularly on Windows 2000/XP. This crash happened while TTDPatch was checking switch dependencies, before even starting the game. There was another crash just after the intro before the main menu was displayed, if morecurrencies or enhgui 16 was on, but no new graphics have been loaded (e.g. if newgrf(w).cfg didn't exist). Another bugfix was that selecting new currencies in the main menu didn't actually apply to new games, and finally a bugfix with gradualloading and miscmods 8, where a train sometimes refused to load more cargo if it didn't unload any before visiting the next station.

Because the first crash (checking switch dependencies) was quite serious, I intend to make a bugfix release for the 2.0 final version. This will only include bugfixes, and none of the new features available in the alphas. However, since all the bugfixes that will go into 2.0 rev 1 (or whatever it'll be called) are now in alpha 3, please test these fixes thoroughly. I'll release the bugfix version of 2.0 after getting feedback on how well alpha 3 works.

If you know of a bug in 2.0 final which *hasn't* been fixed in alpha 3 yet, please tell me immediately.


All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 3 (October 12, 2003):

• really, really, *really* fix sharedorders...
• split vehspri.asm into vehspri.asm and newsprit.asm
• created statspri.asm for new station graphics, but so far it's empty
• updated newgrf.txt with the specs for station graphics (doesn't work yet though)
• actions 7 and 9 can now test the TTDPatch version
• created new random triggers for when consist empties or gets new load (currently works only with gradualloading)
• fixed crash while parsing command line
• fixed crash if no new graphics but morecurrencies on or enhgui 0x10
• support patchproc notation of bit1 AND bit2 AND (bit3 OR bit4 OR bit5)
• fixed selection of new currencies in main menu not applying to new game
• fixed bug with train loading a bit, returns to station and refuses to load

Sorry, the first release of alpha 3 didn't include updated version information and thus only worked on the American version of TTD. If you've downloaded it already, please download the updated version I've posted now (same place and filename). No changes other than updated version info.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Hi

It's time to start some heavy experimental feature testing:
On the plan, build really huge stations, up to 14 x 15 or 15 x 14 squares.

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 3.1 (a) (October 14, 2003):

• Real big stations, 14(15)x14(15) max
  You have to enable enhancegui to use it's full power
  You can add tracks like before, so it's possible to have 15x14 or 14x15 stations.
• by Josef: Fixing vehicle sprite bug

The DOS Version is build without versions data, if you have problems while starting, try to change the servint switch to currentvalue+1

Make a backup of your Savegames...

For discussing the new feature please use the big station topic:
viewtopic.php?t=4750

Windows Version:
files/ttdpatchw-2-0-1_3-a.zip

Dos Version:
files/ttdpatchw-2-0-1_3-a-dos.zip

I've released alpha 4 at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/

Aside from the usual bugfixes (see below for the full list), there is one new switch and one new miscmods setting.

The new switch, "moresteam xy" or -YM does what miscmods 1024 used to do (which will no longer do anything), except that it has a parameter. You can now choose how much more (or even less) steam you want. The parameter has two digits, e.g. "moresteam xy" has x and y. The first digit (here "x") sets the length of the steam trail, and the second digit sets how often a new steam plume is generated. Both have a default in TTD of 2, i.e. "moresteam 22" gives you the TTD default steam generation. When you increase or decrease either of the digits, the corresponding variable is doubled or halved. For example, "moresteam 23" gives you the same length of the steam trail, but twice as many plumes, and "moresteam 31" gives you a trail twice as long but with half as many plumes.

The new miscmods settings, bit 1 (i.e. value 2) modifies the "servint" switch. It makes it apply to only human-build vehicles, so that AI vehicles keep TTD's default service interval. This is useful if you play with breakdowns on, but set a high default service interval. In that case, you can now prevent the AI's vehicles from breaking down all the time. Note that, like "servint", this only applies to new vehicles. You can use "Cht: Servint" to change existing vehicles.

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 4 (October 19, 2003):

• fix incorrect vehicle display in purchase list (could also cause crashes)
• by Csaba:
  
  • hints for "Reset" and "Service" buttons are now displayed properly even with multiple order windows open.
  • order windows weren't redrawn properly after sharing an order list
  • when sorting by cargo type, consists with only one cargo weren't at the top of the list
• disallow manual conversion of depots if there are vehicles in it (interferes with the dbset)
• detect and complain about multiple action 8 entries in a grf file
• new switch: moresteam xy or -YM turns on moresteam and sets amount. x sets length of plume, y sets frequency. 2 is TTD's default, adding/subtracting one doubles/halves the length or frequency.
• miscmods bit 1 (value 2) makes servint setting not apply to AI
• fixed bug: after switching climate when loading games, Euro character and transparent station signs didn't work until loading game again

Time for a experimental release:

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 4.1 (a) (October 25, 2003):

• moreindustriesperclimate:
  Let you fund paper industries in temperate, use the tpaper(w).grf to have a paper wagon, doesn't work with cargoset
• Real big stations, 14(15)x14(15) max
• Devel: Code cleanup for enhancegui

Thanks to George for the Grf file, and to Josef to fix it

Have fun

(Sorry for the dos version, but I compile blind [can't test it] and hopefully it will work and find all stuff in memory)

-edit-
There was a mistake in language data, TTDPatch will crash if you try to write new config file, please use "moreindustriesperclimate on"

-edit second-
I got some positiv feedback that it will work with the cargoset, if you put the tpaper grf file at the end ... My test was negative and positiv, so test it yourself... In general it should work...

_________________
TTDPatch dev in retirement ... Search a grf, try Grf Crawler 0.9 - now with even faster details view and new features...

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 4.2(b) (Nov 2, 2003):

• Paper (with moreindustriesperclimate) as refit options for GRF Files (Thanks Josef)
  newgrf.txt "b) The following cargo types are defined by TTDPatch:" with new entry:
  1B 8000000 0B Paper (in temperate climate with moreindustriesperclimate switch)
• moreindustriesperclimate:
  Fixed small pixel bug in new temperate fund industry window,
• Fixed a mistake in the language file which crash the config file creation

_________________
TTDPatch dev in retirement ... Search a grf, try Grf Crawler 0.9 - now with even faster details view and new features...

Alpha 5 is available at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/

It has two new features, and an improvement for another.

First new feature is "abandonedroads" by Csaba Varga. It makes unused roads lose their owner. If no vehicle passes a road tile in a certain time, the road will lose its owner, and can thus be removed by anyone in the game. This is useful to get rid of all those left-over roads from AI routes, without having to manage or buy out the AI company. He also introduced the new miscmods bit 2 (value 4) which prevents cities from taking over all roads in their area if you import a savegame into the editor. This used to make it necessary to use "Cht: OwnCrossing", which should no longer be needed.

The other new feature is "moreindustriesperclimate" by Oskar Eisemuth. It introduces a new cargo type into the temperate climate: you can now transport paper. For this, you can also fund new paper industries in the game. Note that paper wagons and trucks will only be available if you start a new game or use "Cht: ResetVehicles". TTD's default ships can also be refitted for paper, but the "New Ships" set does not allow this yet in the temperate climate.

In addition, Oskar has extended the "largestations" patch, which now allows (in principle) stations of up to 15x15 in size. With enhancedgui, you can build up to 14x14 in one go, and then add another platform or make them longer. This way, you can get either 14x15 or 15x14. 15x15 is not currently possible because of limitations in TTD's gui. To choose a length or number of platforms greater 7, click on the little "plus" sign to the right, it will add 8 to the length or number. Don't ask about the left and right arrows above and below the station picture, currently they do nothing, until I get the new station graphics to work. Then they'll be used to choose the station style.

Finally, George has updated his "long vehicles" set with new road vehicles. You can get the update at the New Graphics page, http://www.ttdpatch.net/newgrf.html

Have fun!


All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 5 (November 3, 2003):

• by Csaba:
  
  • new switch: 'abandonedroads on' or -YA makes unused roads lose their owner after a while
  • it's possible to manualconvert occupied depots again, however the wagons of incorrect train type can't be attached to trains of different (new) type
  • miscmods bit 2 (value 4): towns no longer take over all roads built in the scenario editor when a savegame is imported
• by Marcin: fix bug with AI taking over original company when using subsidiary management with sign cheats disabled
• detect non-patch grf files in newgrf.cfg and give error message
• allow whitespace at the end of on/off cfg switch values
• fixed bug with saveoptdata on but unimaglev off and newtrains off: showed train engines as wagons in purchase list
• include changes from Oskar's 2.0.1 alpha 3.1 (a):
  
  • Real big stations, 14(15)x14(15) max
• include changes from Oskar's 2.0.1 alpha 4.1 (a):
  
  • new switch 'moreindustriesperclimate on' or -YI allows funding paper industries in the temperate climate; use the tpaper(w).grf to have a paper wagon, doesn't work with cargoset
• include changes from Oskar's All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 4.2(b):
  
  • Paper (with moreindustriesperclimate) as refit options for GRF Files
  • Fixed small pixel bug in new temperate fund industry window,
• with moreindustriesperclimate, make sure paper wagon and trucks are available in temperate and TTD's default ships are refittable for paper

tpaper.grf
(Both, Windows and Dos Version)

_________________
TTDPatch dev in retirement ... Search a grf, try Grf Crawler 0.9 - now with even faster details view and new features...

Warning: It seems there is something gone totally wrong while integrateing my patches to alpha 5, useage of the bigger stations buttons could demage your savegames.

It seems that parts from alpha 3.1 and alpha 4.1/2 are mixed...
I try to make a bugfix version as soon as possible, but this could take around ~24hours...

-edit-
I made a diff file so Josef can fix the release...

Ok, as far as I see the gui should work, but It can occour that you get more than 14 tracks and lenght, if it's more than 15 TTD will break not directly but somewhere in the code because TTD can't save such big stations. -> a Savegame with this can't be fixed withaout A LOT afford, so if you see the station is to big don't build it.

Another problem are the tooltips, it can happen if you right click TTD will crash. Otherwise as far as I can see all things should be working well...

Savegame Editors: They will break because of a new format for really huge stations, if you only have max 7x7 stations, you can use editors...

I've released alpha 6 at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/

Lots of new stuff and bugfixes again.

The new station graphics (from e.g. http://www.patagonia.de.vu/ttd/) are going to start working soon. Right now, I've added the "newstations" switch (-YI), but at this point it only allows choosing new station layouts in the construction screen. When you build them, they will not look different. Wait for alpha 7

To test this, you can download newstat_tst.zip from the above source code page, which contains graphics for the DOS and Windows version. It's only a crude demonstration, and displays a flashing number in the construction menu when the new stations are selected. Those interested may notice that the first new station has numbers 1 to 4 depending on the track type (regular, electric, monorail or maglev), but the other three stations always show the same numbers 5 to 7.

I've also introduced a few new vehicle properties. The graphics artists can now set where they want steam plumes to appear relative to the front of the engine, as well as setting the visual effect independently from the traction type and sound effect. Also, it's now possible to have powered wagons by setting property 1B for the engine. Then all wagons with a graphics override (i.e. those making up a train set) will add the given amount of power. This will make modern trains more realistic, where the wagons are powered as well, e.g. the TGV and ICE3.

To the graphics artists: to make your graphics files compatible with 2.0 rev 1 yet be able to use the new features, set the grf version to 5 and add an action 7 like this: * 9 07 8B 04 05 3C 00 0A 02 <num-sprites>. This will skip those sprites in 2.0 rev 1, which you should do both for the new properties and the new station graphics. Ideally, for setting wagon power you'd set the engine power outside this action 7 block, then override it to the engine-only power and set the wagon power inside the action 7 block.

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 6 (November 10, 2003):

• by Oskar: fix bug with incorrect button behaviour in station building window
• by Oskar: fix bug with station acceptance with moreindustriesperclimate
• by Csaba: fix crash when loading games with abandonedroads off
• by Csaba: fix bug when town tries to demolish tile
• define new vehicle properties for action 0: can now make powered train wagons for train sets, specify visual and sound effect separately and choose steam position. setting train&plane refitting won't do anything yet
• train wagons will no longer be converted to electric by Cht: Tracks 1 0
• electric wagons can now be attached to diesel engines and vice versa
• make it possible to undo action 4 for general texts (e.g. keep copy of org values somewhere, and array or linked list of texts modified so far) therefore general text action 4 can now be skipped by action 7
• new switch "newstations on" or -Yn enables new station graphics; but currently only displaying them in the construction window works

Alpha 7 is out at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/

Aside from fixing the road vehicle refitting bug (and a few others), there are several changes. First of all, Csaba managed to persuade TTD not to resort the vehicle list many times a second. Instead, now it's resorted every few second, and you can change the update frequency by the parameter given on the "sortvehlist" line. Also, the selection of sort categories is now a dropdown menu, accessed from the same button.

Note that the format of the sort categories in ttdpttxt.txt changed slightly. If you're using this file, you have to remove the initial "\98", or they won't have the right colours in the new dropdown menu.

Additionally, I changed the mammoth trains feature so that long trains now wrap to the next line in a depot. This means that now all wagons are visible, and can be manipulated.

All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 7 (November 15, 2003):

• correction in newgrf.txt, action 7: descriptions of condition-types 4 and 5 were swapped
• added weight override along with power override for train set wagons
• forgot to add powered wagons to adhesive weight for realistic accel
• fixed bug: road vehicles could not be refitted
• implement plane and train refitting cargo list (props 1D resp. 13)
• fixed bug with tenders not having the correct distance from train (tenders with this bug need to be rebought)
• fixed old bug in cht: resetvehicles which reset the selection of active graphics to the default, now only cht: graphics does that
• setting train and plane refit property works now, can even make train wagons refittable
• by Csaba: make sortvehlist only update every few seconds, settable by parameter
• removed sortvar from veh struct, made separate array for it (3.4 KB * morevehicles)
• new vehicle variable 0x72 counts refitting to same cargo e.g. for different types of goods
• improved mammothtrains: now too long trains continue on next row of depot

Yes, just a few days after alpha 7 I've released alpha 8 at http://www.ttdpatch.net/src/ , mostly because there were quite a few problems in alpha 7 (and I had the time to fix them...)

However, it's not just bug fixes in alpha 8. Thanks to some research by Marcin, I was able to introduce a new switch: "buildwhilepaused on" or -XB allows you to build, bulldoze, click on sign and give order while the game is paused. You show be able to do (almost) everything, in fact. However, I'm not sure if there was a reason why these things were not allowed in paused mode before. In particular, it may not work very well in multiplayer games. In single player, everything seems to work fine, though.

Note that if you build many things in paused mode, you'll run out of "slots" for the rising cost/income text effects, of which there are only 30. Because of this I've changed the way TTD allocates them, and so now instead of not displaying new ones if there's no room, the patch will get rid of the oldest one instead. This is activated by "buildwhilepaused" as well (although I'll probably move this into generalfixes eventually). If you'd run out of text effects, all the existing ones will move up a little, and the oldest one will expire. This may take some getting used to, but it's better than how it worked before...

Finally, Oskar has added a new configuration window inside the game, which currently allows you to change some of the "enhanced GUI" settings. To activate it, simply click on the empty gray bar in the settings menu, just under "Difficulty settings".

Oh, and Michael Blunck has released version 0.5 of the DB set. You can get that from http://www.ttdpatch.net/newgrf.html . It fixes a graphical glitch with the TEE mail wagon when last in a train (backlights version only), and fixes DMU/EMU refitting according to a bug fix in 2.0.1 alpha 7.

I hope alpha 8 is more stable than alpha 7 was, but all the bugs reported to me since alpha 7 have been fixed, as far as I can tell.

Enjoy!


All changes in 2.0.1 alpha 8 (November 17, 2003):

• changed the way the "+" displayed when a long train is continued on the next row of a depot
• fixed bug in calculation of trains with normal/fast/fastest (0/1/2) settings
• new switch: "buildwhilepaused on" or -XB allows (all?) construction while paused
• fixed bug with trains in depot incorrectly displayed as old (in red)
• fixed bug with clicking on train in depot while another train is leaving sometimes giving the wrong vehicles
• fixed bug with multihead on also turning on rvqueueing
• fixed crash when buying multiheaded train engines with multihead off and "mountains" not off
• fixed bug with incorrect train acceleration after loading game
• fixed bug with the wrong road vehicles being refittable
• by Oskar: add menu to choose enhanced gui settings; click on "empty" row in settings menu to open window

Thanks for quoting, I forgot to mention it here

I've uploaded a new experimental version to:
http://www.csucsposta.hu/csaboka2/ttdpatch/

(the files with "vcs2" are the new ones)

It has the following changes:
- It's now possible to have a warning about lost vehicles (vehicles that couldn't get to the next station in the given time) (This switch wasn't tested too much...)
- The DOS version gives timeslices away while showing the high score tables and the end game screen as well
- News messages no longer appear if an opponent's crashed airplane or train is cleared. Also moved these messages to the vehicle info category
- Implemented a cache for performance scores if both newperformance and showprofitinlist are enabled, so it won't slow down low-end machines so much.
- Showprofitinlist colors only the last year profit, not the whole line. It shows the exact performance score with newperformance.
- Various small improvements of my older switches
- Fixed a small bug with transparent station signs (they appeared with normal letters even in the farthest zoom level, which caused incorrect display)