RockPatch 1.08 - Preview

[VK]

I can add special flag in [General] section: NewSaveFormat=[yes/no]
I have idea : to add switch between original mode and expanded mode(Rock Patch)
What you think about it?

Today I tried to add 9 players to FireStorm - it terriblely, but work
I want to expand players limit up to 16 or 20 in YR

[Blade]

I'd stick to raising the limit to 8 players online rather than 6 for now, changing it to more than 8 would probably cause a number of bugs as stuff broke.

[Marshall]

@pd
Do you know that the urban areas are not saved when you save a random map? On loading, it seems to regenerate the map so presumably only the seed info is saved, and the urban areas bit isn't saved. Not a major problem though.

[VK]

I'd stick to raising the limit to 8 players online rather than 6 for now, changing it to more than 8 would probably cause a number of bugs as stuff broke.

I say only ABOUT Single player
Because protocol IPX which used by C&C:YR set limit number of players = 8

Also I want to add "TechLevel" slider

[DJBREIT]

I can add special flag in [General] section: NewSaveFormat=[yes/no]
I have idea : to add switch between original mode and expanded mode(Rock Patch)
What you think about it?

Can this be set up to check if it needs the newer format? Then automatically apply. Since a selection should not be needed if you know what stuff would need the new format.

[pd]

the urban area flag should be saved then.

@CnCVK:
the flag for urban areas is at 0xBA7080 (IDA), would be good if you included it into the save/load routines.

there's a LOT of stuff hooked with players.
enabling more could take you a while...
though I'd like to see it.

---
did anyone ever think of a "Singleplayer Observer Mode".
would be cool to test the AI

[Blade]

What type of save is Marshall referring to though, the saving of a randomly generated map (in which case it would need to have a value in it saying if urban areas were used for when the map is regenerated), or the saving of a game in progress in skirmish?

As for different save game formats, the WW patches themselves broke backwards compatibility IIRC, and many mods screw up save games so they won't load correctly or the game won't progress correctly afterward anyway (different units available than should be and so on). I really don't think it would matter too much in the end.

[pd]

if that's true, I totally agree with Blade, saving versions isn't required then.

hey wait, if Marshall meant this:
- you create a random map with urban areas
- you save it, load it, the urban areas are gone
this problem is fixed, because you have the checkbox to turn it on off.
so if you load your random map and you want the urban areas back on it, toggle the checkbox on and regenerate the map

@CnCVK: this means you can forget what I said about saving that flag.

---
Since I'm not working on the patch at the moment (waiting for CnCVK), I worked on a tool that creates stringtable patches.
this means if you have a modded ra2md.csf, but you want to make use of the additional stringtables feature of RockPatch 1.08, you can just use this tool.
it will compare your modded CSF to the original one and put out a CSF with just the changes in it.
this goes pretty fast, takes 7 seconds for me (on an AMD Athlon64 3700+ on Windows XP Pro 32bit)

@everyone who tested this tool: I improved it, it's faster now

EDIT:
There's also gonna be an ExceptChecker revision in v1.08.
the tools are planned to be delivered directly with the patch (since they're all just a few kilobytes)

[VK]

did anyone ever think of a "Singleplayer Observer Mode".
would be cool to test the AI

I try to do it - it funny
(You can build  ALL units)
AI Build [ZEP] when you build [APOC]

The new .SAV files are NOT compatible with old version
I write it again...because I have more info now

@PD I tested 9 players map in FireStorm it work rather correct and need only one "debug edit" when loading

[Marshall]

I was referring to saved Random Maps - not saved games played on a random map.
I saved a random map and did not click 'use this map'. I exited and rentered the random map generator, tried to load the map. The loaded map was the same as the map I saved, minus the urban areas.

Okay, I realised the checkbox was off. So I put the checkbox on and tried to load the map again - same problem.

When loading a random map it seems to generate the map from scratch, yet it still produces the same map, so I assume that a saved random map saves the seeding information used for generation, rather than saving a standard map file (I assume a saved random map cannot be opened in FA2).

-----
For a single player observer mode, wouldn't it be simpler to just allow a person in skirmish to choose to be an observer, rather than creating a whole new player slot? Adding new player slots is an admirable goal, but ultimately not neccessary or worth the potential hard work and bugs.

[Bobingabout]

is there a way to allow your CSF patcher to create a difference between 2 extracted files?

in R:BOTH i want ti keep the R:ROTC CSF in the game folder with an Overides CSF in the R:BOTH Rules Mix file.(if this is even possible.). R:BOTH is like an expansion pack for R:ROTC.

which reminds me, can CnCVK take a look at something called the "100 units bug" and "Whiteboy bug"/"74 units bug"???

this would allow me to include R:BOTH inside R:ROTC as was my origninal intention...

incase CnCVK doesn know, 100 units bug is when you have more than about 102 buildable units on the unittypes or infantrytypes and probably also aircrafttypes lists, the AI constantly builds these units. the whiteboy/74 units bug is a bug where the game hard crashes when you have more than 74 cameos on an ingame build menu. PD found a referance to 74, but didn't have much luck increasing the number.(he tried 255, but it was a signed byte.)

[pd]

@Marshall:
Acknowledged
It should be easy to store another flag inside the SED file (it's just an INI afaik)

@Bobing:
the csf patcher can compare any two csf files.
you could even go ahead and create a YR - Generals patch.
I know, that'd be pointless, but possible.

About the "74 units bug".
I don't know whether the problem was that it was signed or whatever, maybe I just missed something.
That's the reason why I don't mess with stuff anymore that I know nothing about.

@CnCVK:
At 0x6A4E60 (IDA), the sidebar gets created and the tabs are initialized.
about the numbers:

[sidebar+0x1598] = first tab
there are 4 tabs, each 0xF94 bytes in size.
every tab can hold 76 cameos à 0x34 bytes per cameo.
I don't know anything about the actual cameo data, but that's uninteresting.

It would be good if every tab can hold a maximum of ~300 cameos.
K, if you're at 300, you could also make it 1,000 by changing a number, but remember that it costs RAM
if you're willing to do that, do it, if not, I will give it another try later.
It doesn't look too hard to do.
I'm damn happy I got my assembler that saves all the OpCode work <.<
btw, did I send you the assembler already?

[Blade]

I had a thought about savegames, why not just make the rock patch save games with a different extension? Then if the RP was uninstalled, the old save games will work again. Clutters up the users RA2 directory a bit more though.

[Bobingabout]

.RPS files

[VK]

I think .SAV with new version(1.002) will be better
EDIT:
I add "techlevel" slider in menu
Also I find hard coded 100 units limit
Because it using 3 array with 100 elements
Now I think how to delete this limitation