Sorry about the recent trouble with the website again. I hope it'll get sorted out soon. In the mean time, you can access it by IP, at
http://66.216.18.204/ . However this address doesn't work for maybe 10% of all visitors for unknown reasons...
Anyway, I've released alpha 44, even though it's not really the best time for this. However, I'm leaving for Germany in less than a week and want to get some testing done before then.
So here's what's new. First, it includes all the changes to the town growth code that Marcin has announced on Monday, and I'm not repeating the details of these. You can read it in the posts above if you missed it.
Aside from several changes behind the scenes (memory manager and loader), I've renamed several sign cheats, and created aliases so that you can keep using the old name, but you'll get a message telling you the new names.
Cht: RemoveEngines is now Cht: RemoveVehicles
Cht: AllEngines is now Cht: AllVehicles
Csaba has created a new patch for currency handling, which introduces one new currency (Forints) as well as a custom currency. You can change the custom currency name using the ttdpttxt.dat mechanism. To enable the new currencies, use "morecurrencies on". You can also use "morecurrencies <number>", where the number is the multiplier to use for the custom currency, in units of a 1000th. For example, "morecurrencies 2500" sets the multiplier to 2.5 .
Some people have complained about the change from 100 litres being a ton to 1000 litres being a ton in generalfixes. You can now turn this off by adding the value "16" to the miscmods switch.
I have also spent a lot of time on improving the placing of pylons on electrified track. Now, long stretches of straight track show pylons on only every other tile. Curves and changes in slope should be handled properly, but there may be small glitches. On bridges, pylons have the wrong position currently, but I'll fix that soon.
Because of these changes, I had to yet again update the elrails(W).grf file, so please download an updated version or your electrified tracks will look very strange.
Finally, Oskar has written several enhancements to the game interface, enabled by "enhancedgui on". This creates buttons for all 7 platforms and lengths in the station dialog (if you use largerstations).
All changes in 1.9.1 alpha 44 (May 23, 2003):
- change loader to run before TTD initializes
- make more memory available in the lowmemory version especially
- remove support for separate sprite data segment
- lowmemory version can now use morevehicle > 2, but then fewer graphics can be loaded
- renamed Cht: RemoveEngines to Cht: RemoveVehicles and Cht: AllEngines to Cht: AllVehicles
- allow sign cheat aliases; ReloadEngines for ResetVehicles, AllEngines for AllVehicles and RemoveEngines for RemoveVehicles
- by Csaba: prevent lumber mill messages after every time a baby tree starts growing again
- by Csaba: "morecurrencies on" to enable Forints and a custom currency, "morecurrencies #" to set multiplier factor
- by Csaba: allow manual track conversion with "manualconvert on". Only regular tracks work at this time.
- new miscmods value: adding 16 prevents generalfixes from changing the display of litres such that 1000 l is a ton, instead of 100 l.
- restore shell icon after exiting
- improve placement of pylons on horizontal/vertical track
- fixed offsets of pylons and wires
- long stretches of straight track have pylons only on every other tile
- added .ico files to the DOS version too, they'll be used when you create a shortcut or view the properties in Windows
- included changes from Marcin's 1.9.1 alpha 43.1 experimental:
- Bug fixed: -C or -W with no parameter could crash TTDPatch
- Bug fixed: Windows version restores the console icons before terminating
- TTDPatch now supports long (.cfg) versions of switches in the command line, in the format --switch=value or --switch value (not very useful in the DOS version)
- New switch: towngrowthratemode, -YT: define what affects the growth rate of towns. Value: 0 - TTD standard mode, 1 - TTD extended mode (as in previous alpha versions), 2 - advanced settings mode.
- Many additional new switches (long versions only), active only if `towngrowthratemode' is set to 2, to define the rules of town growth rate calculation
- New switches, `townminpopulationsnow' and `townminpopulationdesert' (long versions only), to define minimum populations to which towns in snow or desert can grow even without food or water (active if `towngrowthlimit', `towngrowthratemode' or `generalfixes' is enabled; set to 0 to get the standard TTD behaviour)
- New switch: moretownstats (no command-line short version yet): display additional statistics in a town information window
- Modified the `bribe' feature, it works with multiple companies now (should work in multiplayer, too); fixed problem with 'unwanted' status not expiring in 2070 and later; the bribe cost calculation has changed slightly, now passengers and mail are taken independent of each other
- More data per town are stored in a secondary town array if any of the following switches are enabled: bribe, towngrowthlimit, towngrowthratemode, moretownstats; the array is saved in an extra chunk after the normal data
- Town population is now stored as a 32-bit value, so it no longer wraps around at 65536 (active if the secondary town array is used)
- TTD bug fixed: when a new town is created in the scenario editor, population and number of buildings is recalculated for all towns (because town boundaries have changed; active if the secondary town array is used or `generalfixes' is on)
- TTDPatch now displays a warning if important data may be lost (due to some feature being disabled or not present) while loading a game
- With `lowmemory on' it is no longer possible to load a game with a larger `morevehicles' setting
- Allow ranged switches with no associated bit in common.h, as auxiliary parameters (used for the new town growth switches)
- New debug flag, o+ to write all switches (not only the new ones) in alphabetic order when using the -W switch
- by Oskar: allow defining bits directly in .cfg file, e.g. "switchname #1011" sets bits 0, 1 and 3 (counted from the right)
- by Oskar: new switch "enhancedgui on" (-YG) improves game interface e.g. for construction of large stations