Proposed development of YR 1.002 Community Patch

[Marshall]

At the moment I'm going through a lot of my cnc projects that I hope to update soon:
Website, YRPM, Clean Up program... and the UMP.

1.
Seeing as how we don't yet have a stable version of the Rock Patch, the 1.002 Community Patch is still some way off.
As such, I plan to release a new version of the UMP soon along with the vastly improved Developer's Pack.

2.
I'm in the process of looking into the maps:
Dry Heat
Dry Heat MW
Mount Rushmore
Near Ore Far
Tour Of Egypt
Monster Movie
Irvine, California
Moon Patrol
These are the maps that have a General section.

However,
IrvineCa.yro
MonsterM.yro
MoonPatr.yro
have some garbage at the top of the file in my text editor so I'm worried about editing them - can someone else provide the fixed versions?

Further more, These three are all from the YR Map Packs and so users may not have the maps in question in the first place.
I'm inclined to include them anyway however as I think most 1.002 users will already have them.

3.
Excellent, but what about:
deathvalleygirl.map
deathvalleygirlmw.map

These two maps have a [Gereral] section.

[Gereral]
DefaultMirageDisguises=TREE21,TREE22,TREE23,TREE24

What to do about this? What would happen if it were fixed/not fixed?


4.
If a map overrides an Infantry does its pip get messed up? I assume it does and, as such, we need to check all maps to see if any infantry are overriden... eventually.


5. We also need to know what maps have water but don't disable the building of Naval Yards.

[CannisRabidus]

The official mappack maps are problematic since unlike the maps taht come bundled with the game, they remain available as downloads in their original form. And they're also mirrored at lots of fansites, besides just being on the WS ftp site. Users are going to have version control problems as they overwrite with the UMP versions and then overwrite again with the offficial versions and on and on.

There's also another one (with the bunch of Einstein's labs which are involved with nuke strikes on player bases) which has somewhat faulty trigger logic as I recall.

Bah, you know what, all the YR official mappack maps essentially suck anyway. I'd ignore them if I were you. It's not like there's very many of them either.

[Gereral] doesn't do anything, so you can ignore the DVG maps.

[Marshall]

I hadn't even thought about the overwrite problem.
Your logic is, as always, impeccable. I shall ignore the Map pack maps but mention them in the developer's pack.

With regards to DVG, I know that Gereral is nonsense, my question was more about whether or not to fix the map - it sets the tree disguises presumably for a reason. Is there a problem with DVG mirage disguises that needs fixing?


6. There is another problem:
The Yuri's Revenge SP campaign maps - they ALL have a General section.
Should we do anything about these?
We're already including all02umd (if the mod supports sp campaigns). But what about the others?

[CannisRabidus]

Every map should set mirage disguises, IMO. WS actually intended to in DVG when they ignored this in almost every other map they made, but of course they messed it up... it's not worth the file bloat to include the DVG maps over this. The other extreme is to offer a copy of every single map in the game, with them all given little map-specific tweaks and improvements like this (mirage disguises, AISafeDistance, crap like that).

On the campaigns... by rights they all should be fixed then. I won't include them myself, despite supporting the campaigns, for the same file bloat reason. But others might.

[Marshall]

I'm hoping to alleviate file bloat by including a patching system with the UMP and Purple. If it works, then maybe others could too. But I agree, those without such an option would experience difficulty.

And file patching won't work with the campaign maps unless the user inserts their YR CD.
I also wouldn't fix all02umd if the others weren't going to be fixed (may as well be consistent with the prism bug).

[~Guest~]

Hmm.

If this patch is intended purely to be a patch, then why bother with the extra functions at all?

Instead, I see this as part of a modder's pack and a general upgrade that modders can count of being present on their audience's computers. It's silly to add half the features if you leave out things like TX. Why bother with 4th side stuff, extra SWs, Whiteboy's bug and the 100 unit limit?

If pd's patch is a boon to modders just the way TX is to TCs and mapmakers, why not just centralize it? Granted, TX is still underdevelopment but then so is pd's patch so the point is kinda moot. I say merge the two, damn the filesize, and make something that modders and mapmakers can really use.

(BTW, I'm on dialup but I don't even blink at a 5-10 MB download. If I can return to links night after night, 500~ MB is done in 3-5 days and that is something you won't even come close to.)

[Blade]

Personally I'd say file bloat be dammed and fix anything that can be fixed without unreasonable effort. This includes all the maps and such, do they really take up that much space when LZMA compressed? I presume you would also be adding additional code as needed to support the extra features of the TX such as ammended settings for the overlays and new animation entries for the waterfalls and such?

[Marshall]

I'm inclined to agree.

At the moment, the main point of this "Community Patch" seems to be dwindling to just providing the UMP resources, in which case, why bother at all?

I say we go for a "YR 1.002 Community Resource Pack" which includes the following [optional but very strongly recommended] components:
YR 1.002 Unofficial Mini-Patch Resources
YR 1.002 Unofficial Mini-Patch Code
Terrain Expansion
Official YR Map Packs
RA2/YR Map Fixes (multiplayer) - includes Map Pack fixed maps IFF map packs installed too
RA2/YR Map Fixes (singleplayer)
Assault Map Packs - provided Cannis is okay with this
PD's 'Rock Patch'

All but the Rock Patch would default to ON (at least until the Rock Patch is certified completely stable)

If I can get my patching system working then the filesize might not be too hideous.

The installer would write an ini file that detailed the exact component setup so that other mod installers can determine if the user meets the requirements of the mod.
Mod authors can choose to require the CRP or include the neccessary CRP resources in their own mod (except the Rock Patch which would be available through the CRP or as a stand alone download - just like the TX is)

[Blade]

I would go for a core v1.002 patch that includes the exe patch and some key resources that MUST be installed (since its a patch to improve things) and then have the optional list of extras to include as well. I would consider map fixes, the UMP features and the official maps to be required by the install a. You could require the original game CD to be in the drive to copy some stuff the the HD (the map mix files for example) so they can be patched. I'd also pick a stable rockpatch release and make that a required part of the patch too. When the rock patch is updated enough again, release a v1.003 version of YR and so on.

[Bobingabout]

if you going to rely on PDs patch in this pack, then might i sugest that instead of "Updating" the langmd.mix file for the CSF, why not ask PD to hack the exe to allow reading the CSF file from expand mixes?

also, if you want to add assault mode why not ask PD to fix the multiple PKT bug?

[pd]

EDITED: removed because it was a bit too rude...

Anyway, "get him to"... not fine

[Bobingabout]

sorry about that, i wasn't really thinking... it was a quick 2 second addition.

i didn't mean to be rude, or demanding, it was only a sugestion.

[Bobingabout]

now that we have the PKT and YRO thing out of our system, hows this thing coming along?

Similarly, I love your new yuri sidebar and I plan to include it in my mod, but not the YRCP, given it's filesize.

i've gone through that yuri sidebar and removed loads of un-needed stuff, such as the old TS files, and the leftover soviet stuff.
i've cut its filesize down to less than 2 meg. you can cut it down even further with compression.

[DCoder]

I am really bored... Say, Marshall, is there anything I could do for this project at the moment?

[Marshall]

@Bobingabout:
Interesting. What files from the mix are unneccessary?

@DCoder/all:
Right now, the project is planned to include the following:

YR 1.001 patch (English) - only offered if not already installed (compulsory)
YR 1.002 UMP - core files (permanent) & mod launcher (for basic Assault)
YR Terrain Expansion (2.02)
Rock Patch (1.06)
Official YR Map Packs
Assault Map Packs 1-2 - IFF Cannis agrees
RA2YR Clean Up program
YR Playlist Modifier
XWIS Connection Tool
UMP Developer's Pack
Start Menu Shortcuts

I have yet to sort out the Rock Patch and updated Clean Up program.
I also need to finish the new version of the UMP and Dev Pack.
Like the TX installer, this one will need to provide the TX ini files for mapping - I need to sort that out.

My patching dreams have fallen through, however I believe the package will be little more than 15MB.

It looks like patching langmd.mix will not be possible - so the fixed strings won't be either - the fixed strings can only be included via the UMP mod or another UMP-supporting mod.
All that could be done for multiple language versions would be 1.001 patch and translated installer/UMP mod/etc.


Right now I'd say the most useful thing others could help with would be the following:

A. Are there any official maps that have no water but still allow the building of Naval Yards? If so, we need fixed versions.

B. Are there any official maps that modify infantry? If so, the pip stuff needs restating.

C. Can the three YR Map Pack maps be easily fixed? [IrvineCa.yro, MonsterM.yro, MoonPatr.yro; I couldn't see how to fix these because of the garbage at the top of the files. Is it worth fixing or should we just leave the prism bug in those maps?

D. Attack Dogs in land rush are incorrectly addressed in the current UMP. How should they be addressed?

E. Is there anything you can see that is incorrect in the current UMP (esp. main fixes, but also the extra info too) that needs to be fixed?