Project: Unofficial 1.06 Patch

[Wolverine@MSU]

Thanks milo/. I'll give it a try tonight.

Just curious though, why is the NoCD version so much smaller (~3Mb vs > 4 Mb) than the normal version. Must be a lot of code dedicated to looking for the CD to be present.

[Hawk]

Is this latest patch cumulative?
Would I install it before the no-cd exe?
So far I haven't installed any of the patches but I'm gettin' real curious about them. :D

[Wolverine@MSU]

I nstalled the patch over the NoCD version of the game and it seems to be working fine. I took a look at it with The Cheshire, built a PAX only warehouse in the editor and it showed up. Also tried ship at a loss and it seemed to work OK. It was deducting the $ lost correctly. Will give it a more extensive testing when I get a chance. Thanks again for making the patch work with NoCD.

[Hawk]

Thanks Wolvy. I'll give it a try. :)

[milo]

Is this latest patch cumulative?

You'll want 1.05 installed, either the regular or no-cd version, before you start. All of the 1.05A stuff and all of the 1.06 work so far is included in each of the alphas.

So far I haven't installed any of the patches but I'm gettin' real curious about them. :D

Well, make sure it's on a day when XP isn't getting to ya. ;) These are called 'alpha' for a reason. A bug in A02, for example, stripped all of the randomly-created ports and warehouses off of new games - made 'Japanese Miracle' much harder!

[Hawk]

Thanks for the tip milo, but after unsuccessfully flashing the BIOS and loosing the OS, having to reinstall and call Uncle Bill for permission to use my computer, I don't see how it can get much worse.
Besides, I've taken some extra steps to hopefully stabilize this OS and cut back on resource hungry XP apps that aren't necessary, and I've installed Acronis True Image.
I think I'm ready.
I still don't like XP but I love the new computer.
When I had RT3 installed before I had never seen it like that. I had all the graphics options maxed and even with 100 trains, no stuttering.

[milo]

Beta 1 is out. I repeat, Beta 1 is out. Get it from your friendly neighborhood FTP server, as always in the Patch106 directory in the engmod account.

(or at least until the bugs start rolling in...)

Seriously. Report bugs. I want to throw the beta open to the whole board as soon as I'm reasonably confident I didn't miss something stupid. Well, okay, most of the whole board is in the modding group already... but still! Crashes to desktop, weird behavior, complaints about how that one drop-down list sticks out the side of the dialog, all of it. Bring it on! Because if you don't, I ain't a-gonna fix it, so THERE.

[Lama]

Woo-hoo! I am heading there, right now. I'll give it a test run as soon as I quit being hooked on the freshly-released "Europa Universalis III".

Oh My God! Just looked at your readme file - this is fantastic!

Especially this part - an item on my long-given-up-on wish list:
"26. Adds support for variable operands. In other words, you can now add a variable to another variable.
27. Extends operators available to effects. See Appendix I."

Thank you, Milo!

[bombardiere]

Wow Milo. The readme alone took my breath away. I must say that you alone have done more for the game than Poptop after its release.

I’ll give it a go in couple days and see if anything goes wrong with my game. Most of the editor stuff is way over my head, but I can se how it behaves in normal game.

BTW Milo. I know that I have waived with this issue, but I don’t see any harm that future (or final) patch is also released without the locos for those who have only a dial-up internet connection. I have been thinking about a “standard loco pack”, which would replace current one. I have pretty much made up my mind about the engines, but I still will post about it for wider feedback.

[milo]

It's your call... but I'd rather always include some large subset of your engines with the patch so that the average scenario-writer knows he can depend on them being there. If there's a loco-free version of the patch floating around, then the writer has to assume the new engines aren't there. I couldn't find a good way to have the game post a 'You need to install X' message rather than crashing on a missing engine.

What I really wish we could do is have the game demand-load the extra resources it needs, perhaps from another directory outside 'data'. Not sure how to tackle that, though.

[bombardiere]

This is getting slightly OT, but I’ll reply anyway. I agree with you that somekind of standard loco can go hand in hand with the patch. However in general locos are not that unuserfriendly. If a scenario maker chooses a new loco and mark it in the editor, the scenario will launch and play ok, even if the loco is not available. Lack of loco does not make the game crash. (of course it can change the scenario balance.) I don’t know what happen if an event call for a certain loco. I assume it will crash. And a saved game with new loco active and not available will crash the game. (tested…)

[milo]

The Beta 2 release is now available from the engmod account. Look for rt3_1.06_b2.zip in the Patch106 directory. Changes since Beta 1:

• Fixed the 'Territory-Allow All' CtD that Wolverine@MSU and Hawk reported.
• Probably fixed the late-game CtD that Bombardiere reported.
• Repaired the weirdnesses with skinning buttons when more than 104 engines are installed. Unfortunately could NOT repair the problem of losing 'loco available' and 'loco cost' effects. We're still stuck with swapping out loco packs. :x
• Fixed instability associated with installing more than 100 logos. You're still limited to 100, but the game will ignore extras rather than crashing.

Have at it!

If one of these releases ever makes it past the sanity tests, Hawk can throw it open to the whole board.

[milo]

The Beta is dead, long live the Beta!

B3 is on the engmod account. Look for rt3_1.06_b3.zip in the Patch106 directory. Changes since B2:

• Fixed a CtD in the 'Set Track Pieces Buildable' effect.
• Fixed a CtD in the City/Regions editor page if a region contained no buildings.
• Repaired custom portraits, which were broken by B2.
• Set historical growth curves on Department Stores.
• Made the Fertilizer Factory buildable by players.
• Added Coast-to-Coast to the documented requirements.

Hoping we're almost done with these - the patcher crossed over 7000 lines of code on this release. I've finished two scenarios without a crash, and B3 survived my torture-test map that destroys a lot of track across multiple territories as well.

[Hawk]

I'm off to get it.
Thank you milo for all your work on hacking this thing, and thanks bombar for you work on the engines. I hope this brings new interest in RRT3. I know as soon as the testing is over the patch should be announced at some of the other forums, or is this a bit risky?

[Wolverine@MSU]

Beta 2 still causes a crash with the scenario I'm testing. Seems to be due to a "Deactivate" event. A company has been set up when the game starts, and a startup event is scripted to deactivate it. The game crashes when this event is encountered. It doesn't look like that is addressed in beta-3.

I'll do some more troubleshooting and include a small sample scenario if you want me to milo. Didn't have time to research it much this morning but if I don't hear back from you by the end of the day, I'll do some more on it tonight.

In the process, I noticed that the cheat codes no longer work. I wanted to use them in testing the CTD to give me money in the editor, but they don't work. They also don't work in normal play mode.

[milo]

<shifting bug discussion over to the bug discussion thread>

[milo]

B4 has been uploaded to the Patch106 directory, and I've also asked Hawk to make it publicly available. Changes since B3:

• Internationalization! B4 includes German documentation and support in the installer, and French is coming soon.
• Fixed missing buildings on steel and coal economic screens
• Repaired original cheat codes
• Replaced 'Upgrade' with new cheat
• Replaced 'Orca' with new cheat
• Took out special CtC locomotive handling
• Increased limit on eventable locomotives to 129 from 100
• Enabled debug menu if '-d' is specified on the RT3.EXE command line
• Added a dialog to replace player description when ledger portrait is clicked
• Modified player creation to use names, portraits, and descriptions explicitly set in the editor
• Added ability to override newspaper tertiary headline, title, price, and date text through the Choice 1-4 fields
• Extended status reports to six potential pages using the same trick
• Took out limits on AI industry purchasing
• Forced AI locos to wait at their 'base station' for cargo

Download it, torture it, enjoy it!

[Gwizz]

I STARTED PLAYING tHE TRANSCON. MAP WITH THE 1.06 INSTALLED.

I HAVE NOT PLAY RT3 FOR SUCH A LONG TIME, I'M HAVING TO RELEARN HOW.

FIRST I COULDN'T ROTATE THE MAP. ZOOM WORKED. I CLICKED TOGGLE OFF THEN BACK ON AND ROTATE THEN WORKED.

MY BIGGEST PROBLEM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MAP OR 1.06. MY MONITOR IS SO DARK I HAVE A HARD TIME SEEING THE MAP. AN OLD PROBLEM I FORGOT ABOUT WHEN I CHANGED TO THE NEW MONITOR AGAIN. I PULLED THE CHAIN BUT IT WAS ALREADY AS BRIGHT AS I CAN GET IT. I MAY SWITCH MONITORS SINCE THIS ONE IS AS BRIGHRT AS I CAN GET IT. I WONDER IF THE VIDEO CARD CAN BE TWEEKED TO BRIGHTEN UP THE GAME. OTHER PROGRAMS ARE BRIGHT. WHY IS RT3 SO DARK?

NOW I NEED TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY THIS MAP. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE STARTED A MAP ON EASY. BUT AT THIS POINT I'M A NEWBIE. NOW WHERE DO I TYPE 3 TO FIND HELP? TOMORROW I WILL CONTINUE ON AND LEARN SOME MORE.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I MAY SWITCH MONITORS SINCE THIS ONE IS AS BRIGHRT AS I CAN GET IT. I WONDER IF THE VIDEO CARD CAN BE TWEEKED TO BRIGHTEN UP THE GAME. OTHER PROGRAMS ARE BRIGHT. WHY IS RT3 SO DARK?

Have you adjusted the "Gamma" setting in the "Settings" menu? I found I had to turn mine way up to brighten the picture.

[Gwizz]

That fixed it. Thanks Wolverine.