Stuff about GrfIDs (Split from Canadian Graphics)

[wallyweb]

it's about issueing a draft ...

I issued a proposal (draft?) for the structure of a database. There was not much of a discussion, so I assume a database is not the concensus. Fair enough.
So now, who will be the next to issue a draft?
Perhaps you have something in mind that we could look at.

[michael blunck]

Technically, there are only two possibilities:

- a centralized service to guarantee that there are no newGRFs with the same ID,
- a mechanism in the game itself to cope with (rare) cases of duplicate IDs.

regards
Michael

[PikkaBird]

- a mechanism in the game itself to cope with (rare) cases of duplicate IDs.

Well, we already have that, at least. Also, Bananananas upload gives authors a defacto system for duplicate checking.

Of course, there's no easy mechanism for detecting or dealing with the "problem" which started this discussion, which is not GrfID conflicts, but rather NewGRFs deactivating themselves for arbitrary reasons. As I've said before, if OzTrans wants his newGRFs to not work on Wednesdays, that's up to him. The rest of us should just shrug our shoulders and move on, instead of engaging in this death spiral of soul-searching about how to squeeze 400 files into a range of 4 billion IDs.

[Ammler]

@Frosch: Why do the AuthorIDs need to be alphanumeric?
@Andy: It is easier to disable ABXX than AB10, AB20, AB30..., (mask against list) and it is kinda upwards compatible
(Edit: also it is much less likely that I produce a conflicting GRF, I just need to use "MG"0FXX as my next GRF, I do not need to check any GRF list.)

OzTrans solved this issue quite fair, he did not disable the issue causing GRF, he disables his own and let the player decide what to do.

I would not setup a database to claim "AuthorID"s, but link the GRFID overview & wiki from bananas so authors see if there are "similar" GRFIDs already around. Some coders work with masks, some with lists. But people with lists should respect already existing ranges and not use one from it just because their GRFs do not care about masks.


btw. I was sure back then that "MG" was free.
(Edit: confirmed, it was my last grf was around 2010 (! really that long ago? , Yoshi started coding 2011)