1.9.1 alpha progress

troopper5 · Post by **troopper5** » 26 Apr 2003 09:13

Hmm... i got a bit dizzy with that bit code thing again... well, i use all trains anyway...

When is alpha 39 coming? I'm already awaiting that

Dinges · Post by **Dinges** » 26 Apr 2003 09:24

It is already out.

spaceman-spiff · Post by **spaceman-spiff** » 26 Apr 2003 17:56

Dinges wrote:It is already out.

That's a good one

Patchman · Post by **Patchman** » 28 Apr 2003 01:28

We're getting ever closer to the beta version. At this point, all that I still want to do before going beta is to improve the pylon placement for electrified railways (especially some of the bridges and horizontal/vertical tracks), and if I have the time (and a good idea how to do it), to use cross-spans for junctions and rail lines with more than two tracks.

If there are any outstanding bugs that I haven't fixed yet, please remind me what they are, just to make sure I have a chance to fix all known bugs.

So what's new in alpha 40? Csaba Varga has improved the new tree planting again, by introducing a new sign cheat: "Cht: PlantTrees <SizeX> <SizeY> <Type>". This plants the specified rectangular area of trees around the location where you place the sign. If not specified, SizeX=SizeY=40 are assumed, which neatly covers the area of a lumber mill. If <Type> (the tree type) is not specified, random trees are planted. So to replenish the tree supply of a lumber mill, all you need to do is place a sign on top of it saying "Cht: PlantTrees". It doesn't get any easier than that! With "cheatscost on", you will of course have to pay for the cost of the trees.

In addition, he has improved the sign cheat code by allowing multiple signs with the same text. Previously, you could only place each sign cheat once on the map, or you'd get an error message about the name already being in use. Now, the sign can contain any text, even if it's identical to some other sign, or even town or station names. However, towns and stations themselves must still have unique names, of course.

I have also included Marcin's changes from his version alpha 38.1 experimental. Since he's already announced these here, I won't repeat everything he said. Look for a summary of the changes below, or in his message. If you didn't get the message, check the mailing list archives. The two most important changes are the new keyboard mapping, allowing the use of localized keyboards with any (DOS) version of TTD, and the port of the DOS version to the OpenWatcom compiler. This compiler is now the default compiler for the DOS version, and it's free to download from http://www.openwatcom.org . Borland C++ for DOS will continue to be supported too, as it will be my main development platform. Set USEBCC=1 in the Makefile if you want to use Borland C++ for DOS.

Finally, I've yet again improved the electrified railways slightly. Now, electric pylons are not drawn if you turn off the "full details" option in the display settings. In addition, they will turn transparent if you enable transparent buildings. This is to allow you to see signals which may be blocked by the pylons. I'm not sure if transparent pylons are really useful, so I'm looking for feedback on whether to leave this in, or whether turning off full details (with Shift-5 if you have morehotkeys on) is sufficient.

All changes in 1.9.1 alpha 40 (April 27, 2003):

fixed bug: pylons from elrails(w).grf didn't work near the beginning of newgrf.txt
by Csaba: sign cheat "Cht: PlantTrees <SizeX> <SizeY> <type>"
by Csaba: allow duplicate signs
moved sign code to a different area of TTD code; should work better
included all changes from Marcin's alpha 38.1 experimental:
- Bug fixed: when vehicles are deleted due to vehicle array size reduction, their schedules are deleted too (so that they don't clobber the precious little schedule heap space)
- Bug fixed: ship refit list is no longer empty if "newships off" is used but other new graphics are present (note: the bug may persist in older savegames if 'saveextradata' is on)
- Bug fixed: the C key (center) no longer works the same as Z (center & zoom) with 'morehotkeys on'
- TTD bug fixed: backspace key used to trigger a 'replay' of the key buffer occasionally in the Windows version (fix active if 'generalfixes' or 'win2k' is on)
- TTD bug fixed: now screenshot key combinations no longer cause inadvertent multiple screenshots in DOS versions, too
- Enhanced keyboard handler in the DOS version that allows for almost arbitrary mapping of key combinations to characters
- Ported the DOS version to Open Watcom
- Bug fixed: TTDPatch tried to display a localized "press any key" message even if an error occurred before language data had been loaded
- Bug fixed: "-a -W ttdpatch.cfg" was passed to a program started via the c debug flag if there was no f- flag, no arguments to the program and no ttdpatch.cfg was found
- New debug flag, L+ to load language data from language.dat instead of the executable
- New debug flag, I- to disable programming of the keyboard indicators (the LEDs) in the enhanced keyboard handler (in case it doesn't work well)
when writing ttdpatch.cfg, // *** NEW SWITCHES *** is now only shown once, not for every new switch
ttdvar macro now officially supports 0x9c458..0x9f278 range too
electric pylons no longer displayed if full detail is off
electric pylons are subject to the "transparent buildings" option too

Jan · Post by **Jan** » 28 Apr 2003 02:46

Great job Josef. I got one request. As I see, you sometimes had to change the position of graphics path in text file or in the graphics folder. Will be possible to upload the best working order in the text file and the folder? Maybe screen shot or just a list.
TIA Jan

Patchman · Post by **Patchman** » 28 Apr 2003 04:14

At this point any order should work fine, unless there's another bug (but I don't think so). What might not work so well is if you have a .grf twice in there, or both types of the tempset etc.

Here's what I have, in any case. Note that this is more or less random, I just keep moving lines so that the one I'm testing in particular is the first one:

Code: Select all

newgrf/carcarr.grf
newgrf/tempset.grf
newgrf/cargoset.grf
newgrf/signals.grf
newgrf/elrails.grf
newgrf/oiltank.grf
newgrf/lngtank.grf
newgrf/passln.grf
newgrf/reefer.grf
newgrf/lstockc.grf
newgrf/gcv.grf
newgrf/bulkfrg.grf
newgrf/contshp.grf
newgrf/pcgoodc.grf
newgrf/arcticst.grf

Hyronymus · Post by **Hyronymus** » 28 Apr 2003 09:20

I miss the explanation of the Yo-switch. It sais read the doc for more information but I have no clue where these docs are. Can somebody help me out and tell me what switches Yo serves and what it alters?

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 28 Apr 2003 09:52

Hyronymus wrote:I miss the explanation of the Yo-switch. It sais read the doc for more information but I have no clue where these docs are. Can somebody help me out and tell me what switches Yo serves and what it alters?

miscmods information are in the changelogs

http://www.ttdpatch.com/src/
http://www.ttdpatch.com/src/oldchanges.html

Hyronymus · Post by **Hyronymus** » 28 Apr 2003 13:08

But it says: "selectively disables". I don't want that, I want to control it. So setting it "off" is ok then?

Arundel · Post by **Arundel** » 28 Apr 2003 16:28

Beta sounds good!

Then gamma

and then final!

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 28 Apr 2003 16:29

Arundel wrote:Beta sounds good!

Then gamma

and then final!

Hopefully I will finish my new GUI Stuff before we get beta *eigs*

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 28 Apr 2003 17:43

I'm sure Patchman is willing to wait for that a bit. Or else he could first do an alpha with only bugfixes (like a beta called alpha), then your stuff and then betas.

Patchman · Post by **Patchman** » 28 Apr 2003 23:09

Well, once I start the beta test, I will call for a feature freeze. This is needed so that the translators have time to translate the new items. This takes usually 4-6 weeks, and during that time I won't include new features that need translations. Bugfixes and other stuff can still go in though.

But it's still at least 2 or 3 weeks to the beta test. And even if you miss that, there's always the next version

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 29 Apr 2003 05:32

Good work Josef! Can I ask a question? If there are say... 2 factorys around... Raichasia (a... random... city), and there is a subsidy to take livestock to "Raichasia Factory", will both factorys begin the subsidy, or only one.

Ie if I take said livestock to one of the factories, will it accept them as part of a subsidy, or just as normal cargo. I would assume that both of them would start the subsidy.

Thanks for the time, and this new sign deely looks superb. Pass my congrats on to the creator of the latest switch also please.

spaceman-spiff · Post by **spaceman-spiff** » 29 Apr 2003 05:48

Rai, I tried it out, the subsidy only works for the factory it shows when you click on the subsidy !
The other factory doesn't pay it out

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 29 Apr 2003 06:26

Great, thanks Spiff. I doubt that it is a "bug" as such, b/c it makes sense that a certain factory would encourage more of a certain material to be delivered - not all factorys near a set town!

Thanks again. I like it, it's realistic

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 29 Apr 2003 09:26

Raichase wrote:Great, thanks Spiff. I doubt that it is a "bug" as such, b/c it makes sense that a certain factory would encourage more of a certain material to be delivered - not all factorys near a set town!

Thanks again. I like it, it's realistic

Hmm, it was only a quick hack, it doesn't check anything.
I already said this in some of my dev post I think.
There is a problem with close together industries and station too.
Maybe Josef or I should switch it off...

Josef: I can always make a experimental dev version, who needs translations anyway

anaconda · Post by **anaconda** » 29 Apr 2003 10:06

Patchman wrote:Well, once I start the beta test, I will call for a feature freeze. This is needed so that the translators have time to translate the new items. This takes usually 4-6 weeks, and during that time I won't include new features that need translations. Bugfixes and other stuff can still go in though.

Hey! I got ONE week last time!

And I had to go through all the misspellings and bad language my predecessor had done!

I have to admit though, some phrases in English are very hard to explain in Norwegian with a limit of chars. There are a few things that should be changed in the next release. (Especially when some switches work a bit differently).

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 29 Apr 2003 10:10

Maybe when someone figures out how the Japanese TTD works you can have more characters.

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 29 Apr 2003 10:19

Arathorn wrote:Maybe when someone figures out how the Japanese TTD works you can have more characters.

He means the lenght of texts.
(The gui windows in the german version are bigger than in the english version to reflect this problem)

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