jeffryfisher

This is amazing news! What do you think will happen if I try to open an existing saved game from the original (disk-based v1.56)? Should I avoid that and play only new games started by the new release? Come to think of it, I didn't see where you said which EXE version rrt2-decomp reverse-engineered. I'm hoping it was v1.56 (the last patch to the original disk-based game). Steam's EXE was modded to integrate it, so if you reversed a Steam-distributed EXE, then you're saddled with its wrapper/hooks. Because the original went to 1.56, I recommend jumping your initial mimic to 2.0.0, and then use 2.1 etc for any enhancements. Also, the worst (crash-level) bugs in the old game should probably be patched before you offer any new features. Those could come out in 2.0.1 etc. Known bugs (off the top of my head): 1) Engine replacement during turn-around causes permanently folded runaway train. 2) Phantom farm allows track to be built over the top of it, and 1st train to hit it will crash the game. 3) Deleting a train can corrupt the train list, leaving an adjacent train pointing at another train's schedule (and its original schedule is orphaned) 4) I strongly suspect that stacking event results (things like +/- 10% cost of something) are miscalculated. At the very least, they don't seem to *unstack* logically when a series of buffs is followed by some nerfs. I'm very eager to peek into the decompiled source code to see how the game manages those pluses and minuses. After I get a good look at that, I'll probably be chomping at the bit to rewrite it, but I worry that the saved-game data structure might need to change. 5) Computer-run companies replace their engines too often. I suspect that they're wrongly using *train* age instead of *engine age* to trigger replacement. Because this is ruinously expensive, the PC players become even more hopelessly uncompetitive after about year 10 or 20 in any scenario. 6) Multi-input industries did not rebuild demand after a delivery. Ports also had a problem that could only be patched by hex-editing a saved game. 7) The TGV (or was it the prototype?) is hard-coded instead of being listed in the engines data table with all other engines. 8+) Many, many patches to that v1.56 EXE that I and other fans surgically implanted using hex-edit tools, mostly about 15 years ago. They're mostly numeric corrections to data tables embedded within the EXE. I can't even remember them all now, but I have some before-and-after spread sheets around here somewhere. I'm busy until after Halloween, but I hope to dive in after that

Some of the "game rules" were designed for the Metra-scale maps (where a single industry/station building really can fill multiple squares), but they're enforced on even continental-scale maps (where multiple stations and the largest railyard in the world could fit inside a single square). Perhaps the game could benefit from giving each map some metadata that includes its scale so that the blocking and turning rules can change.

My ideas are laid out from the beginning of this thread. Off the top of my head: Bug fixes, like not jamming a train when its engine is replaced during a reversal (train turning around and overlapping itself). Also: When passengers become scarce, make sure that various cities produce them slowly but steadily instead of all at once rarely (i.e. randomize the houses so they're not synchronized). And then there's the phantom farm crash, and train-list data corruption after a train is deleted. Also: Computer players should replace engines based on *engine* age, not *train* age (after a few years, they replace engines *every* year!) Then there are productivity enhancements like being able to filter the train list by age and engine-type and then select-all or select several to replace many engines at once. It would also be nice to filter for various common train problems (like waiting empty). Document trigger & event mechanics (or internally comment code) so scenario designers can properly tune events. For instance, if I execute a series of events that discount track-building cost by some percentage, how do those percentages stack? And after the game has stacked several (maybe a lot of them), how would an adjustment the other way affect the total? And then there's the mystery of which adjustments scan be applied per company / region / global / player, and then how they stack if applied at more than one level.

"I plan to release the project as open source if I can obtain permission from the rights holder." I first tried to identify the "rights holder" over a decade ago, and the likely companies deferred to one another. Take2 supposedly bought out PopTop, but when approached insisted they'd sold the rights on to a Sid Meier project (that eventually became his quickly-forgotten model-RR type game). When I contacted Sid Meier's company (forgotten its name), they insisted that they had zero RT2 interest, ownership or original source code. That leaves only Steam (and any other distributors of the original game) as stakeholders. They have contracts with somebody, so they're the ones who might complain if RT2 is re-released. You might approach Steam and at least one vendor of the disc-based game, pitching your open-source idea as an expansion that would drive new sales. The knee-jerk reaction will always be cease-and-desist, because that's how lawyers "think", so don't be discouraged. However, if you can get past the non-thinking lawyer level, then you might get an intelligent reply from an actual business person who thinks in terms of opportunity rather than status quo. If you're outside the US, you have more flexibility to go for an "asking forgiveness is easier than permission" path to the open-source add-on result.

I haven't tinkered with saved games in this iteration of RR Tycoon (I did in the original). I suspect that the train list has rules that won't be easy to tease out. However, if you can find it and understand it, then it might be easier to fix the corruption than to delete a train. The one vague recollection I have from earlier investigations is that all trains in the game (for all companies) are stored together in a master list, so finding *your* train 182 isn't as easy as scrolling down to the 182nd train in an array. If you might recover from the older saved game, first try running it for a year or two to see if it's already doomed. If it gets past your crash date, then it's probably okay. Look at the trains at and around #182. If train #182 in your old save isn't the same train as #182 in the corrupt save, then you might have deleted a train during the year, and that might have corrupted your file. Did you see my message above where I wrote that there's a bug in the game's train deletion algorithm? Never ever ever delete a train! Good luck!

I looked train #182 on the map, but I couldn't touch it without crashing the program. I fear that its data has become corrupted in a way that we can't fix, so your path forward appears to be to fall back to your earlier save (and avoid corrupting it). I recommend rotating saves more often. Do you have a habit of deleting trains when no longer needed? Years ago, I complained that RT2 doesn't always clean up all of its internal pointers correctly when it deletes a train. I can recall having one train's catalog entry linked to a neighboring train's detail page. For that reason, I have a policy of never ever ever deleting trains -- I repurpose and/or replace them instead. Good luck!

Well... I have loaded the saved game and tried (while paused) to investigate the train. However, when I first load the game, keeping it paused, and scroll through trains, I always crash at the moments that I expose train #182. I even went into train details of #181 and then clicked the right-arrow to display "Next". To confirm toxicity, I snuck up on it from the high side, displaying the condensed list from #183 to #187, but when I clicked "prev", the game crashed. No Go! Train #182 is radioactive and toxic. It can't even be displayed, which makes it difficult to find it and delete it. I have no idea where it is on the map, and I don't know its route. #182 is the demon train!

RT2 has some known crash bugs, including one where it's possible to build track over the top of a farm but the 1st train to run over it will crash the program. I'll try to take a look on Wednesday night. I'll look into #241, but that could just be a coincidence (if you stop that train in place before arrival, does that prevent the crash?)

My modded version of the EXE came from the v1.56 CD. It looks for the existence of one particular file at the root level of what your computer thinks is its CDROM drive (old Windows standard device/path name). I can't recall the name of the obscure little file, but it has been discussed in this forum in the past. I'll have a look later. Try faking a CDROM environment variable pointing to a directory (Google how to do that) that has a rt2_tsc.CFG file in it.

My notes are sketchy, and I don't have the game at hand, so I suggest opening the map in the game editor and reading the briefing / announcements (events 21, 74, 82, 126, 436, 466). My fuzzy memory is that you must deliver a load or two from your starting territory to a target city on the west coast (e.g. Canada -> Vancouver, US -> SF). Mexico might be inverted (deliver from Cal to Matamoros). Each has a news announcement during the game telling the award and its conditions.

Very cool -- That info could get someone into at least part of the code (perhaps the most interesting part). The "engine" might not crack as easily, and I don't know how that would affect a reverse-engineering project.

Waste can make electricity cheaper. Surplus lumber & steel can make rail-building cheaper. Surplus diesel can make fuel cheaper for diesel locomotives. None specifically discount bridges.

Open up the map in the editor and copy out the texts of these briefing events: 1: Briefing 7: SP - Goals 21: Transcon Rules 39: Designer's Notes 239: A Fuel Rules 449: Civ War Race Then find help translating them from English

Which information would help?

That's the early-game behavior. However, if you start in 1830 and play through the 1960s passenger slump to an event that boosts passengers back to something useful, then you'll see weirdness. My working theory is that the passenger recovery event affects all houses in the game at the same time, so it synchronizes many of their production dates.