PROJECT: Playtest

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Solver
Also, how about a potential addition of a function that, if a game can't find a targa file, it just replaces it with some standard file instead of crashing?

That's a good idea, but it should be possible to deactivate it so that when you're designing a mod, you notice when a picture is missing.

[The Big Mc]

Same with an .spr file

[Solver]

Well, just remembered that Morrowind uses that... if there's a graphical elements missing, it shows a yellow pyramid. So if you design a new character and mess up the head part, you don't get a headless character, but one with a yellow pyramid for head.

BTW, downloaded Harlan's mod, obviously, and noticed interesting effects. Apparently, some of the diplo pics are in zfs, some are not - and, well, the ones that were not are taken from Harlan's mod, which I unzipped, but those are again bigger than the little icons they're supposed to be - easily fixed, of course, just a notice.

[The Big Mc]

why don’t we just replace missing graphics with a big sign saying "you messed up"

[J Bytheway]

I made a modupdater for those playing around with mods, to make them work with the new exe. See:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=112766

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
Tamerlin,

You don't need to worry about those, they're SLIC names not file names.

Thanks Peter.

BUT, I've converted SAP to a scenario and have been playing it with the debug exe. You might as well scrap a lot of the SLIC.

You mean that the mods will be played like scenarios as they should have been from the start, but there is one thing I don't understand, why should we scrap a lot of SLIC code?

[Solver]

Yeap John, that's a good solution, but also, the beauty of this build is that it works with ModSwapper fully - if you add that single line manually to the file.

[Tamerlin]

What line in which file are you talking about Solver?

[Solver]

That MAX_MATCH_LIST_CYCLES in whatever file is applicable depending on the mod.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Solver
That MAX_MATCH_LIST_CYCLES in whatever file is applicable depending on the mod.

Thanks for your reply Solver, but is it a line you have to add manually yourself somewhere (For example, in an APOL file if you want to play with the SAP2)?

[Peter Triggs]

I'm getting a lot of bugs with the debug exe. Solver, if you (or anyone else) is playing with DebugSlic=No, could you change it to Yes. It's the only way we'll properly debug things.

Tamerlin,

You have to edit APOL_const.txt like this:

RIOT_LEVEL 73
MAX_MATCH_LIST_CYCLES 10 # Amount of AI match list cycles
POWER_POINTS_TO_MATERIALS 1 # 1 power point can be converted to x materials

[Solver]

Peter - played a couple more today, all perfect so far, with Debugslic off. Will turn it on and report my findings. I haven't really seen any gameplay bugs, though, during normal play.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Solver
Yeap John, that's a good solution, but also, the beauty of this build is that it works with ModSwapper fully - if you add that single line manually to the file.

If you just add that single line you get the game running, but you don't get trade routes work properly. With this setup they don't follow roads, railroads or maglevs, and you always need for the wohle game a lot of caravans to establish trade routes, because you can't decrease the distances and therefore you can't decrease the number of Caravans needed.

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I'm getting a lot of bugs with the debug exe. Solver, if you (or anyone else) is playing with DebugSlic=No, could you change it to Yes. It's the only way we'll properly debug things.

I recommend not to use ApolytonPack alone while playing in DebugSlic=Yes, even with Activision's original patch it throws a lot of slic errors. I gave my best to remove them all in GoodMod, but actual I just catched them by checking the validity of units cities and armies.

But of course beside the errors I catched, there might be now more, because of the added validity checks in the source code.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
You have to edit APOL_const.txt like this: ...

Thanks Peter...

[Solver]

If you just add that single line you get the game running, but you don't get trade routes work properly. With this setup they don't follow roads, railroads or maglevs, and you always need for the wohle game a lot of caravans to establish trade routes, because you can't decrease the distances and therefore you can't decrease the number of Caravans needed.

Trade routes are supposed to follow roads now? OK, I'll go and do it with the new mod utility for my next session...

One bug, BTW - if I get a diplomacy proposal, something's definitely wrong there. I get either their proposal, but on the left it says "The xx have ACCEPTED our proposal" (rather than say that we got a proposal), and I only have the OK button instead of accept & reject. Or, it says that they REJECTED proposal, I get the OK and Threat buttons - again, this happens when THEY send me a proposal.