Random game broken?

[Ndi]

Hi.

Well I'm not sure exactly what's broken (either random number generation or the generation procedure) but every time I hit the "create random new game", I get the same map.

Map is always like this: water all around, then a stream going diagonally across the map, so the play area is actively divided in two via a diagonal.

Now one side is hilly like heck, goes so high I'm getting dizzy just by looking at it. Because of this, it's basically bare (1-2 industries).

The other side is relatively normal, with approx flat land, all the towns, all the industries, etc.

If I get to the scenario editor and keep clicking "random land" I can see the same map getting created over and over, with minor differences (4-6 squares difference in the diagonal channel banks) and sometimes the map rotates 90 degrees, so channel is NW-SW, then NE-SW and the mountain and playable area swap (effective random 90 degrees).

Restarting game does nothing. Searching the manual and forum also didn't help (me). Is this known? Expected?

I'm running the latest version (updated today). Exe version is 2.0.10.560 (2.0.1 alpha 56, as reported in-game).

It's not like the game is unplayable, but I sorta enjoy the challenge of random games. I also found an old topic about very flat and low sea/lake not working as designed. Switching to "flat" or any other settings still doesn't make a difference. There's still a channel. Increasing sea/lake gives me a map so wet that I reached 50 ships and 2 trains. The trains have 3 wagons each and it's working on the largest island on map (same stations).

All this could be avoided by only playing scenarios but but but ...

On a side note, is there a list of known bugs/limitations? Couldn't find one (either manual, FAQ or pinned threads).

P.S. Nice work. Really, really nice work.

[Patchman]

Very odd, and not a problem I've heard of before. Please post the details of your system (OS, CPU, etc) as well as your ttdpatch.cfg and newgrfw.cfg.

About a list of bugs, it'd change too quickly to be of much use. The To-do list has some of them listed and is usually up-to-date, but not very concise.

[Szappy]

I was experimenting with the random game terrain generation some time ago, and this typically shows the symptoms of generating lands for the tropic climate.

I hope you're not referring to the tropic, because it (tropic) is designed to be generated like that, so it's normal, then.
(water amount/terraint type does not matter, has a divider canal, and one side is flat, while the other is hilly)

If it's some other climate, then something must have broken it, and you'll need a dev's help (mostly patchman, or Csaboka).

[Ndi]

Sorry about the delay, I hadly have time to sleep.

Well there was a glitch at some point because the game acted up today (forgot settings, etc). I reset everyting to default and reconfigured, just in case. I got the following results:

Temperate: same as before
Snow and desert: same, no water channel
Toyland: no mountains or channels, just land and puddles.

It's not the formation that bugs me. It's that if I enter the editor, I generate random new land, I get a map, good or bad. If I was to plot puddles of water, hills, whatever with a pencil on screen and I hit Random 10 times, the exact same puddles and hills appear. It's just the shape of the shelf that changes (sometimes).

I'll try to attach 2 screenshots of 2 random generations. You'll notice that the mountains shifted, but the south and west side (middle of the bottom screen) is the same, it's just that the mountains cut half of the puddle. Every single time I get the exact puddle right there.

Just open the 2 shots and alt-tab between them. Except for the mountains shifting, the rest is identical. Same with all climates. Toyland seems to also do this, but there are no mountains to shift. I just get land and puddles and the shape of the puddle margins ... well... the best word is "toggles". I get about 2-3 shapes that swap randomly. Meaning I generate 2-3 versions of a puddle.

Not only 2-3 versions it little, but the puddle is always there. I have a 66% chance I can bridge it blindfolded. Each world has its own map (channel or no channel, etc) but each is consistent with itself. Aw and BTW. Rebooting didn't re-randomize. I'll try to screenshot avter another reboot and compare puddles. Still qualifies as a limitation, though.

As requested:

Intel P4 2.8 GHz HT (HT disabled) over Intel D865 PERL, 512 RAM
Windows 2000 SP4, up-to-date
DX 9.0c
All graphics difers up-to-date to latest complete stable release (56.64) due to stereo driver fallback, over nVIDIA Personal Cinema FX5200.
Sound Blaster Audigy 2

I have no known game incompatibilities, everything I tried works. I am also a qualified administrator and coder, so obvious things can be excluded (Antivirus software long disabled (manual scan only), etc).

ttdpatch.cfg has been attached. I have no newgrfw.cfg, I assume it's the replacement graphics, I have none installed (original look). Don't think that matters, though.

It's just that I don't remember the land generation to be so predictable, I assume I'd learn the puddles by heart by now.

Thanks for the reply and, again, sorry for the delay. I hope I can be faster in the future.

[Aegir]

As far as I can tell, thats perfectly normal behavior. As pointed out, Tropics generates with a lush rainforest with lots of mountains on one side, a channel seperating, and then vast deserts. Sub-arctic generates no such channels, and is largely one landmass. It generates one side above snow-line, and the other half has the occasional mountain peak.

Temperate and Toyland should by all rights follow the settings defined by the game options.

Also, there is little 'randomness' to the landscape itself. Quite often it looks exactly the same except some mountain ranges will have slight extensions/recessions in some places.

Hope that helps.

[Patchman]

Please convert .pcx images to PNG images before posting, they won't show up otherwise. (You can edit your post and fix it.)

If you open the debugger ("Cht: Debugger") after generating the random land, what is the "Land Code" it shows? Is it always the same?

[Ndi]

Please convert .pcx images to PNG images before posting, they won't show up otherwise. (You can edit your post and fix it.)

If you open the debugger ("Cht: Debugger") after generating the random land, what is the "Land Code" it shows? Is it always the same?

Edited, images are now PNG

Land code is 3037, each generation, each world. Randseed keeps changing (updated once or twice a sec). Doesn't seem to be looping in any way.

All red counters are zero except used names (1, the sign?) and the Gr cache used (133,174/4,194,304)

Also, there is little 'randomness' to the landscape itself. Quite often it looks exactly the same except some mountain ranges will have slight extensions/recessions in some places

I never noticed that in the old, original (DOS) game. If this is the case (it's not like it's the first time I don't notice something) then this would actually be a wish rather than a bug.

It would be nice if I get random puddles, especially in a random new game since if I'm building the world myself in the editor it's quite hard to be surprised. Plus I can't help not helping myself by not landing an industry on the peak of a mountain.

After all, I'd wait for it to go broke anyway.

[Patchman]

If you open the debugger ("Cht: Debugger") after generating the random land, what is the "Land Code" it shows? Is it always the same?

Land code is 3037, each generation, each world. Randseed keeps changing (updated once or twice a sec). Doesn't seem to be looping in any way.

Very odd. The "Land Code" is the initial random seed for generating the land, so if it's the same code, you get the same land.

I tried to trace how TTD arrives by this code, what variables it uses etc., but I have been unable to decipher how it works. Normally, you would use the current system time for such a seed, but, unless your system time is somehow stuck, that doesn't seem to be the case for TTD.