Year 1900 crash

[sidekikd34]

Has anyone else had the problem that 1.06 crashes at the end of January 1900 in scenarios that start in the 1800s? I'm getting this consistently in two different scenarios. They're the original campaign scenarios, Texas is one that crosses the century, as well as the Third Republic (France). Could it be caused by the addition of the cheat code to manipulate the date? I haven't employed the code, but I get the crash, and I wondered if there might be a connection. I've gone in and looked at the events, there's nothing triggering at that one time, so I'm guessing it's date-related.

[RulerofRails]

Well, I got a chance to check this out with a quick play of Texas Tea. I am able to pass through January/February of 1900 with no issues. I tried this both before and after a medal had been triggered. Same result. (BTW this map is resource-rich. I had forgotten, but after a few years I realized that industry really isn't the ticket here. Cattle/Meat hauling is.)

I don't remember reading about cheat codes that will change the date. Did you see this in Milo's notes? In the 1.06 PDF document in the RT3/Patches folder it mentions expert hot-keys. I have no idea what these are either. Maybe they are accessible from the debugging mode as debugging was mentioned. Could this cheat be related to that?

I know you probably have a reason to play the campaign in 1.06, but apart from the extra locos for nostalgia, I am not convinced of the benefits. The extra locos can make some scenarios easier than intended. If you use ship at a loss that will completely break most of the shipping goals.

I remember reading in a thread that someone had trouble getting the campaign running in 1.06. Getting some sort of error before the campaign screen. I don't know if 1.06 was completely tested for compatibility with it.

[Blackhawk]

I don't think that playing the scenario in 1.06 alone would cause it to crash in 1900. I think I accidentally played a few campaign maps in 1.06 several years ago and I don't remember any crashes. Do other scenarios crash in 1900 or just campaign maps?

I don't think the extra locos would appear since the scenario already has the locos it uses selected in the editor, the addition of other locos don't automatically show up. But the ability to ship at a loss makes for an entirely different experience with the campaigns, especially the Japan Quake one where it is difficult to ship cargoes around because of the low profit margins.

[sidekikd34]

I don't remember reading about cheat codes that will change the date. Did you see this in Milo's notes? In the 1.06 PDF document in the RT3/Patches folder it mentions expert hot-keys. I have no idea what these are either. Maybe they are accessible from the debugging mode as debugging was mentioned. Could this cheat be related to that?

It's in this same forum, milo posted the new cheat codes. He added alternates to "immortalize" those who helped most on the patch, and added a couple new ones. viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2915#p28382

I know you probably have a reason to play the campaign in 1.06, but apart from the extra locos for nostalgia, I am not convinced of the benefits.

I just like those maps. It's not exactly the campaign, because there's some sort of bug when moving from one campaign map to the next, a file versioning issue or something. Anyway, what I did to use those maps was open them in the editor and uncheck the campaign map box. No other editing. I've only noticed the crash in Texas and France, haven't had any other scenario cross the century, except I may have played the Central Pacific after it ended and had it crash, can't quite remember. I suspect it could be something wrong on my machine, but I was kind of hoping it was something more common.

[RulerofRails]

I don't think the extra locos would appear since the scenario already has the locos it uses selected in the editor, the addition of other locos don't automatically show up.

Don't want to knit pick, but thought I should explain why we said opposite things about the locos. The reason I mentioned the extra locos is I was using Moguls while testing for issues with Texas Tea. I would assume what you said to be true, so I went and looked in the editor and over half of the scenarios I looked at have one of the "Allow EVERY (Europe/NA/World) locomotive" switches checked. This puts 1.06 locos into the list for those maps. For the other maps you are absolutely correct.

Maps such as Orient Express, Rhodes Unfinished, Texas Tea, and Third Republic use the "Allow EVERY ______ locomotive" switches. Others such as Argentina and Japan Quakes have specific locos selected. It seems the PopTop team often used shortcuts.

Didn't look hard enough. What a cheat! Time adds another dimension to strategy. If you control time you could do anything.

I am trying to think what might be causing your crash, and 1900 does coincide with new car introduction dates. Maybe it is an issue with the lightweight Caboose/Diner swap for a new model? I hope it isn't, but it is very possible that a train is loading with the newer style around this time. (I am using the plain 1.06, so this wouldn't happen to me.)

[sidekikd34]

Naah, I only changed the weight of those cars, nothing else. I double-checked and nothing seems out of place in the hex editor. The locos is an interesting thought though. Perhaps there's something about a loco in there that didn't exist in the campaign, and the game doesn't know what to do with it? Seems a bit of a stretch to me, I dunno. I get AppCrash for rt3.exe, with a bunch of code that means nothing to me.

edit: It seems to be the Dining Car. I'll check it against the 1.05 version and see what happened. Since I already uploaded the set of edited cars over in the patch building thread, you might not want to use that version...

[Blackhawk]

Ah I forgot about the possibility of them using the "use every loco" option. I suppose it makes sense that they were lazy and used that option frequently, since afterall they programmed it into the game.

At least you got the problem isolated now knowing it's the Dining car. Now to make some more changes to the hex file and hope for the best!

[sidekikd34]

OK, it's related to the use of the Dining Car between 1900-1949, which is DinerC. It's not the file itself, however, because I copied the 1.05 cars back in, and it still crashes when using that era Dining Car. I'm thinking it's an error in another file that's called by the DinerC.

[Hawk]

It could have something to do with you playing campaigns/scenarios in 1.06 that were created in 1.05. Might be some changes made in 1.06 that conflict with settings/creator choices made in 1.05.

Also, as has been mentioned, playing 1.05 scenarios in 1.06 will make some scenarios easier to play than was originally intended.

[sidekikd34]

Tried it in Battle for California, same crash. The Dining Car is broken from 1900-1950. Importing the 1.05 version of the files doesn't fix it, but 1.05 works fine on its own. I'm thinking a typo in a file somewhere in 1.06, but I don't know where to look. I'm suspicious of the ASM files for locos availability testing, but I don't know what I'm looking at. I pulled out all the new locos into another folder, and those are about the only files left that are changed in 1.06, other than the exe itself.

[Hawk]

I'm thinking a typo in a file somewhere in 1.06, but I don't know where to look.

Since you're the only one reporting this problem, that would seem to indicate that it's not a typo in 1.06 itself. Maybe it's something you did? I don't know.
Maybe back up your current 1.06 installation, then uninstall it and reinstall 1.06 and see if it still happens.

[sidekikd34]

Since you're the only one reporting this problem, that would seem to indicate that it's not a typo in 1.06 itself. Maybe it's something you did? I don't know.

Yeah, it would seem so. Can't imagine how, although it could be a Windows 7 thing, or something about the order I installed things, or something weirder. *sigh* Since the game runs, I'll just remember not to use Diner cars after 1900. Don't want to risk re-installing and having it not work again like I had for the last couple years.

[Blackhawk]

I don't ever remember having that problem in 1.06. Like Hawk said it might be your install. The nice thing about RT3 is that you can have many copies of it on your computer, assuming you have the room on your hard drive.

I would try a fresh install in another folder and see if that runs into any problems or not. Then you'll still have your current install that you know works on Win7. Meanwhile you can have a new install without any changed files and should hopefully not have any problems. On my win7 machine I have 4 copies of the game installed. (1.05, TM, 1.06, and a 1.06 for testing purposes).

If you are installing from the CD I think the CD won't install it if it detects the game already being installed, but you can always copy and paste your current install to a external hard drive or usb/flash drive etc. Then install a fresh copy of 1.05 if you need to as well.

[RulerofRails]

I see you are still having problems with 1.06.

I thought I would quickly try to load a map in 1900 with the modified cars you provided. I started a train and it was running around with a Diner and nothing happened, the game played normally. Don't know what this proves. You could try to post a saved game from 1899. If it is one of the original 1.05 campaigns it shouldn't have any extras (I hope), unless you are using a different building for the construction firm? Since you made the map stand-alone might be a good idea to post the gmp file also. I will give it a test in my machine and see if anything happens.

I also use and highly recommend "multiple installs". What I did was installed 1.05 straight on C drive and called it 1.05 clean. Then I made a copy of this folder for installing maps and any extras for playing. I used another copy of 1.05 clean to install 1.06. I called this one 1.06 clean. Then I made a copy of that folder for extras, maps, and playing. I have an additional copy of 1.06 for testing purposes (full of new and modified stuff). I used an additional copy of 1.05 clean to install TM. The advantages I see with this is that if an install goes bad (luckily saves are almost always transferable) I can make a fresh copy and have it patched/modified in half an hour or so.

I recently had a crash of all my installs of 1.06. I ran a paid-for diagnostics/disk-check/clean-up tool on my computer and it didn't give me any warning about any action it took with RT3. But when I tried to play 1.06 I couldn't load any maps as I was getting a crash on "Loading Building Databases." I was unable to fix it, so I copied 1.05 clean, patched it, and it works no trouble again. Another time, I managed to crash it irrecoverably by trying to drive the tank near the edge of the map while in the debug mode. It must have "fallen off" and it froze my whole computer. Having a clean install saves lots of headaches.

[sidekikd34]

OK, did as you suggested, and I have narrowed down the issue somewhat. I took my 1.05 install, made a clean 1.06, made a copy, and started adding back in the stuff I had before. I can use Blackhawk's 1.06 fix involving Ceramics, Concrete, the Church and Machine Shop. I can also use the test Quarry. The warehouse replacements file set is what causes the Dining Car C to crash. I will keep you posted when I isolate the individual file.

*Keeping you posted: It's the Machine Shop files in the Warehouse Replacements package. Everything else can be installed and used fine, until that set is added, then crash on generating the Dining Car. Happens the same in editor on a blank map as it does in a scenario.

[Hawk]

Sounds like you got the problem narrowed down.

Good job!

[Gumboots]

A machine shop tweak causes a dining car crash? That's one for the record books.

[sidekikd34]

A machine shop tweak causes a dining car crash? That's one for the record books.

Seems about right for RT3. Nobody can guess how stuff is interconnected in the bowels of the engine.

[Gumboots]

Yeah I'm not all that surprised, really. The codebase is pretty weird.

[RulerofRails]

Well done on your persistence to find the culprit. That's very weird, who knows why there would be conflict there. Hopefully it isn't an issue that will prevent a new skin from working correctly with the Machine Shop.