Previous INFRA-map...

[SAC]

Hi all...

I'm working on a new map for my continuing INFRA-project, but it just occurred to me that I sort of enjoy my previous game map with all the work I've put into it during the years. I was wondering if there's any possibility what so ever to sort of re-start my previous game as a new scenario? And with this I mean removing all industries, railroads, trains, buses, ships, aircrafts, orders, well everything that cannot be added while in scenario mode - but allow for all towns, roads and everything else to remain intact? Almost like copying my previous game into a new scenario?

Re-starting my previous game from scratch, (which I do have stored), isn't an option as I've made numerous landscaping changes during the years, and some of them have proven to be rather complicated to achieve depending on all the game factors involved...

Still, I'm mostly thinking that removing everything from the game such as the stuff that aren't possible to add while in scenario mode, could perhaps be altered code-wise allowing for the current landscaping and infrastructure, (roads), to function as if it's a work from scratch - before starting to play the game again...

Is this at all possible?

[WWTBAM]

I am pretty sure if you rename the savegame to have the scenario extension and load it in the scenario editor, everything should still be there for you to change as you please. I have not done this in quite a few years though.

[Rubidium]

Someone with a bit of knowledge of the internals of TTDPatch (and a assembler) should be able to write a bit of code that removes those things from the savegame.

It would be a 5 (or so) minute job with OpenTTD to write the code that removes the stuff just after loading the savegame in OpenTTD, however... then you'll end up with an OpenTTD savegame and no custom bridge heads, so it's not a solution to your problem and it'll probably not like the custom bridge heads and such from your TTDpatch savegame when loading it.

[wallyweb]

Hi SAC,

A lot depends on what you have on your map, what you want to remove, and what you want to leave as is. Try these steps:
1. Start TTDX and go directly into "Create Scenario".
2. In the Disk button you should see a "Load game" option. Load your saved game and make sure to pause it.
3. Now do a sign cheat Cht: money [amount] . [amount] should be large enough to do a lot of dynamiting. (Alfred Nobel won't help you here ) . If at any time you should run out of money, you can always do another sign cheat. Note that your account will be credited with double the amount you enter.
4. Now go through your map and blast away at anything and everything you do not want to keep.
5. Next, open the GRF Status window and turn off all the GRFs except for those things you want to remain on the map.
6. Now you will need to do a lot of sign cheats (Note: Depending on what you wish to keep, you may not need all of these.):
- Station Reset
- Reset Vehicle Data
- Reset Industry Data
- Purge house and industry data
7. Roll back the Start Year to 1921.
8. Do a cht: money 100,000 to reset your bank account to 200,000.
9. Now, Ctrl+click on the disk. The "Load game" option is now changed to "Save game". Save your game.
10. Quit the scenario editor, and go to Load Game and load your game.
11. Re-activate the GRF's you turned off and start having fun.
12. Send me another cold beer.

[michael blunck]

@SAC

12. Send me another cold beer.

Or send me one, and I´ll try to remember the name of that ancient "save game editor" program and try to find it on one of my HDDs.

regards
Michael

[wallyweb]

Or send me one, and I´ll try to remember the name of that ancient "save game editor" program and try to find it on one of my HDDs.

Send the beer to Michael. I want to see what that "save game editor" looks like.

[SAC]

Just to be more precise and to avoid misunderstandings;

When creating a new scenario one is allowed to landscape and extend towns without any restrictions from town councils what so ever... This is what I want to achieve when talking about re-starting my previous game as a scenario with all the benefits that comes with it...

I am however fully aware of the cheat codes available and know exactly what to do in order to remove all the stuff that normally aren't available when in Scenario Editor Mode... But removing all those things doesn't give a game the fully credentials as a "new" scenario...

If you get where I am going - or at least where I want to go...

With this said I'm sending my game to you Michael along with the best beer that can be found in Sweden this summer... and believe me, it's both cold and tasty...

Thanks everyone for your assistance...

Edit to add//

Oops, it pays to pay attention... I see I don't need to send you my game... The beer was enough... Well, the beer is on its way Michael...

[michael blunck]

Well, the beer is on its way Michael...

Well, it´d be sufficient to put it in your fridge which seems to be the usual way[*], because we cannot always trust the mail with those shipments, you know.

[*] I still have the beer for Wile:



(The beers for Josef are being stored elsewhere because they won´t fit into any fridge. )

regards
Michael

[SAC]

Just noticed I actually have that particular Save Game Manager 2.2 myself, but I fail to see how I can use that to make my game become a "scenario in work", (that is, not yet launched to be played... )

[wallyweb]

Hi SAC,

I see where you are wanting to go now. I have occasionally wanted to do the same but unfortunately as it currently stands, a saved game loaded into the scenario editor will still remain a game, or at least that is what I have been told by some of the developers. It would seem now that Rubidium's suggestion is what is needed:

Someone with a bit of knowledge of the internals of TTDPatch (and a assembler) should be able to write a bit of code that removes those things from the savegame.

.
I have had a similar issue when I created a scenario and then loaded my Canadian Town names after the fact instead of selecting them before entering the editor. In this case it was a saved scenario that could not be changed.

[SAC]

I am pretty sure if you rename the savegame to have the scenario extension and load it in the scenario editor, everything should still be there for you to change as you please. I have not done this in quite a few years though.

It doesn't seem to make any difference if I rename e game, and by all means, the extension ".SV1" doesn't show up in my game folder. So if renaming by adding ".SV0" only makes the game disappear...

Wally;

Yes, I was afraid this was the case... Removing stuff isn't an issue for me! I can do that without any problems... It's the transformation from a game to a scenario, (as in not yet played), I'm inquiring about... And unfortunately it seems impossioble...

[Lakie]

It depends on what these differences are, and what is required, really.
I'm afraid I don't have much knowledge of the differences, but I assume you'd need to default (or remove) a number of things (such as company data at a guess).

~ Lakie

[wallyweb]

... And unfortunately it seems impossioble...

Nothing is impossible! Need proof? I learned to code newobjects.
Lakie seems to be on the right track ... add the Local Authority stuff to his thoughts ...
A more drastic move if you are willing to do a little work ... Use TTDPatch's inbuilt heightmap tool discussed here.
You would have to remove everything from your map, take a giant screenshot of it, convert the screenshot to grayscale, convert the grayscale map to RAW format, rename it to height.RAW and then use cht: heightmap in the scenario editor.
You would have to rebuild your roads and towns, but the geography would be preserved.

[SAC]

It depends on what these differences are, and what is required, really.
I'm afraid I don't have much knowledge of the differences, but I assume you'd need to default (or remove) a number of things (such as company data at a guess).

~ Lkie

Hmm, sounds complicated - especially if you're not familiar or even comfortable with codes...

You would have to remove everything from your map, take a giant screenshot of it, convert the screenshot to grayscale, convert the grayscale map to RAW format, rename it to height.RAW and then use cht: heightmap in the scenario editor.
You would have to rebuild your roads and towns, but the geography would be preserved.

Well, if only I could settle with the landscaping itself, but it's also about the infrastructure, (roads and bridges), that I'd like to preserve...

Oh well, I guess I'm better of trying to continue on the new map anyways....

[JGR]

It sounds to me like you want to simulate your company "going bankrupt".
Maybe you can force that by saving it as a scenario, loading it as a game, forcing the original company to go bust (via sign cheat), resulting in stuff like rails etc disappearing and roads losing their ownership...

NB, I've never tried the above, or really tried to convert savegames to scenarios.


Alternatively I could probably write a sign cheat to remove some of the fiddling in that process.

Manually going through the map array/using an editor would be possible, but tedious, and prone to errors and missing bits out.

[SAC]

It sounds to me like you want to simulate your company "going bankrupt".
Maybe you can force that by saving it as a scenario, loading it as a game, forcing the original company to go bust (via sign cheat), resulting in stuff like rails etc disappearing and roads losing their ownership...

Well, I loaded my previous game in the scenario editor and used sign cheats, (purge house, purge industries, etc), allowing me to load new .grf's and sort of start over without tearing my infrastructure apart... The benefits of having the game behave exactly like a new scenario, (before playing it), is that one is allowed to bulldoze town buildings without having to argue with the councils all the time... And at the moment I'm frequently loading TTDAlter to "cheat" with my ratings so I can bulldoze at least 5-6 buildings at a time...

Alternatively I could probably write a sign cheat to remove some of the fiddling in that process. Manually going through the map array/using an editor would be possible, but tedious, and prone to errors and missing bits out.

In my opinion it's fairly easy to get rid of stuff that aren't supposed to be built using the scenario editor... I figured that making a game behave like a true scenario I'd have to get rid of all that stuff normally is added when in game... With the transparency options available it's rather easy to get rid of ALL stuff, and when creating a scenario from scratch I always pre-plan my railroads by laying out "rocks" to visualize where they're meant to be in game...

[JGR]

Well, I loaded my previous game in the scenario editor and used sign cheats, (purge house, purge industries, etc), allowing me to load new .grf's and sort of start over without tearing my infrastructure apart... The benefits of having the game behave exactly like a new scenario, (before playing it), is that one is allowed to bulldoze town buildings without having to argue with the councils all the time... And at the moment I'm frequently loading TTDAlter to "cheat" with my ratings so I can bulldoze at least 5-6 buildings at a time...

I tend to just use cht: debugger when I want to demolish stuff but the council say no. It works fine as long as you don't try to use it on bridges/tunnels or tiles with vehicles on.
cht: clonetile, cht: setlandval, cht: setindval come in handy at times too.

I'm not really familiar with those purge sign cheats *goes to look up...*

In my opinion it's fairly easy to get rid of stuff that aren't supposed to be built using the scenario editor... I figured that making a game behave like a true scenario I'd have to get rid of all that stuff normally is added when in game... With the transparency options available it's rather easy to get rid of ALL stuff, and when creating a scenario from scratch I always pre-plan my railroads by laying out "rocks" to visualize where they're meant to be in game...

I kind of meant that as a response to the idea of writing code/using a tool to do it automatically. There would be lots of annoying edge cases and so forth to deal with, as well as just a fair bit of work.

[SAC]

I tend to just use cht: debugger when I want to demolish stuff but the council say no. It works fine as long as you don't try to use it on bridges/tunnels or tiles with vehicles on.

Hmm, haven't used that one before... interesting... and it surely solves some of the council issues for sure... Usually, when in game, I rarely have problems pushing my bulldozers everywhere due to great ratings, but re-working on my previous game as a scenario, I can't use my vehicles to produce good ratings... Thanks for the advice...

cht: clonetile, cht: setlandval, cht: setindval come in handy at times too.

Never heard of them... What do they do?

I kind of meant that as a response to the idea of writing code/using a tool to do it automatically. There would be lots of annoying edge cases and so forth to deal with, as well as just a fair bit of work.

Ah, okey...

[michael blunck]

cht: clonetile, cht: setlandval, cht: setindval come in handy at times too.

Never heard of them...

AFAIR, these cheats are not available in the released binaries, i.e. you´ll have to compile TTDPatch yourself to get your hands on them.

And o/c, there´s no (t much) documentation ...

regards
Michael

[SAC]

Ah, okey! Well, I realize I can get soo much done just by using the Debugger Cheat... Haven't consider that one before, but it's useful indeed...