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1.24 Progress Thread
#11
Most of the work the last couple of days has revolved around getting v1.23.3 ready for the new translation program and finishing up the base city map. Here is what's going on:

-Bugfix: Fixed a couple of New Marque Spin off Exploits.
-GUI: List pages for view competition in Branch Distribution Windows.
-Translations: Hitting Alt-T in the main menu will now display word ID numbers before text. Do this before starting a new game and also before loading a game started with this feature enabled.
-Translations: Approximately 15,000 duplicate or unneeded words removed from the game text. This is a 15% reduction in non-news related text. 18% reduction in the number of entities needed to be translated.
-Gameplay: Inherit Branch Shipping Distances now works for districts locks and district selections.
-Gameplay: Reduced Brake Specific Fuel Consumption for engines. After a certain amount of fuel economy (based on the fuel type's fuel rating) it becomes exponentially harder to increase fuel economy.
-Gameplay: Switched "hp to weight ratio" to "torque to weight ratio" in the vehicle fuel consumption calculations. (Still working on the balance for this one.)
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in AI gearboxes that could cause high fuel economy in finished vehicles.
-Gameplay: Reduced small volume contract per unit payment amounts.
-Maps and Mods: Finished National Independence news articles for Base City Map.
-Maps and Mods: Added major historical news events between 1900 to 1960 to Base City Map.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#12
v1.23.3 was released.

Most of my efforts the last week were getting Base City Map news events to 1993. And documenting/fixing errors in the v1.23.3 that cropped up.

I continued working on the map data after completing v1.23.3. I am now in 2001. Once I complete the remaining news articles, I will begin porting the news events to other maps. Sadly, this is a long process which makes it seem like not much work is going on. But it is a lot of work. We're at nearly 1,000 static newspaper articles with 408 historical photos in the game. A painful task for someone who hates writing. Anyhoo we're almost done with it.

Also premade cars were added up to 1960 base models. So you should have around 1900-1974 worth of premades in this build.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#13
Some sad news first. The main development computer, XP64-Vipre (I name all my computers after age of the sail ships base on core count and arch/manufacturer) begun to founder Friday. Sadly the north bridge on the motherboard is starting to fail. Heavy use of PCI-E lanes causes system instability. Normally this would be an easy fix, buy a new motherboard. But at 10 years old, I think it best to scuttle her.

So what all the hubub over a computer? Well Vipre is GearCity. I built this computer in 2008 and started working on Beardgine (the game engine) shortly there after. I started GearCity in 2010 on that machine. Since 2011, It did nothing else except work on GearCity. 95% of the code, 90% of the 2d artwork, 80% of the writing all done on that computer.

*Shed a tear*

Luckily since it was just a hardware failure when the machine is under stress, I was able to clone the hard drive (for safety sake) and virtualize the machine. So now both Linux and Windows development is being done in Virtual Box. When it rains it pours. I'm down to one dev-capable machine (I don't count OSX as use-able let alone working in it, but worse comes to worse, it's still working).

This is not all bad. I planned on doing this anyway for Long Term Support of GearCity after release. It's just a bit premature since the game isn't finished yet and thus not in LTS...

Oh well, Eulogy and Rant done. On to what you really care about.

Luckily, working in a VM doesn't slow me down too much (yet). Here's what's gotten done since the last HF.


-Bugfix: Fixed bugs with material costs in reports and manufacturing costs in branch distribution window after you won a contract with Auto Production enabled.
-Bugfix: Fixed Limited Branches exploit when using Build Branches in District.
-Gameplay: Many older established AI no longer immediately go bankrupt.
-Gameplay: Reduced population effect on branch monthly costs when Dynamic Branch Costs is enabled.
-Gameplay: Created a setting for Auto-GUI Position Save and Disable Window Centering. For players who like to adjust the sizes and positions of their windows and does not want the game to automatically remember the locations and never automatically center the windows.
-GUI: User selected units and measurements.
-GUI: Only show user selected unit types for various specs. No more displaying SAE and SI units for the same thing. You pick what you want to see.

There one or two other things that I failed to document. Mostly really tiny bug fixes.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#14
v1.23.4 is almost complete, although I will push the release back 1-2 weeks to finally finish Base City Map and start polishing minor GUI issues here and there. Here is what's been done for the last 10 days:

-Gameplay: Import tax system. Every city/territory has a minimum tax rate of 2% of vehicle sales price if the vehicle is not produced in the same country it is sold. If you import vehicles from low tax cities to high tax cities, additional rates will be charged based on your HQ city tax rate. This feature is automatically enabled for Hard and Nightmare settings. It can be disabled in the new game options.
-GUI: The City Information Window displays the Import Tax rates if the feature is enabled.
-Gameplay: Fuel Popularity will now greatly increase (at 5% per year) if the fuel has a large marketshare but is low in popularity.
-Gameplay: Bonds can not be paid back before 2 years. Thus fixing a free money exploit.
-Bugfix: Fixed IPO exploit that resulted in double income from buying back your own shares.
-Gameplay: Player can now cancel component selection when using the prototyping system.
-Gameplay: The game will now automatically sell shares when you've been out of cash for a couple of months. This prevents players from investing all their cash into a company and then not going bankrupt because they have liquid assets (stocks). Gotta be able to pay your bills/employees! Wink
-Gameplay: Using many low sliders while designing will now directly reduce vehicle's buyer rating.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug that showed outsourced vehicles in the Autoproduction model restriction lists.
-Maps and Mods: Moved Regional Names to the map.xml files. So that regional maps such as Europe, won't have North America, Asia, etc listed.
-Gameplay: Added "World" to the Districting system. So players can select the entire game world if they want to.
-GUI: Added up and down arrows to Branch Distribution Sales Price text box. They increase or decrease the price by $50.
-Mod Tools: Implemented Regional Names to the Map Data Tool.
-Settings Editor: Added Autosave GUI and Unit Types.
-Settings Editor: Fixed clear cache bug that deletes the GPU shader Cache folder, thus causing the game to crash.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in Autoproduction system that could cause production pace to be 100% toward quantity.
-GUI: Rename component textbox will have the old component's name automatically entered.
-GUI: Component modification system will automatically increment the an ending number by 1 in the name of a component being redesigned. Example: Engine-1 will be automatically named Engine-2 (If no other engines are named Engine-2) .
-GUI: Factory Expense reports now show a Production Capacity amount. This value multiplies the percentage of factory lines you use with the average position of your quality/quantity sliders. Thus giving you a rough idea of how close you are to full production. Production Line Capacity data also remains.
-Bugfix Fixed chassis outsourcing filtering.
-Bugfix Fixed bug in Autoproduction system that would not produce vehicles for contracts when the player had no branches.
-Gameplay: About 5% improvement to turn times. (Might be able to squeeze out a little bit more, just thought of something I could try. Smile )

I think that just about covers it! Time to get my mop and bucket and start GUI cleanup!
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#15
v1.23.4 is right around the corner. The major change since the last update in this thread was a
readjustment of base vehicle popularity values. Previous values were created in 2010 and were based on roughly an average of how popular a vehicle type was at start and 2010. The new values are now how popular the vehicle type was at release. This means in 1900 pickup trucks won't be 8% popular in North America. Instead they will start at 0.8% and move up over the years. Mimicking historical shifts in demographics. Dynamic growth rates for vehicle popularity types have been reduced, however, they now effect more broadly. Thus allowing for more player influence on mid-popular vehicle popularity over time.

Over the next week and change I will port most of the Base City Map data over to the other game maps. I will have to manually go through city events on all maps however. After that is some play testing and balancing of the Territory Maps.

Here is a list of what I have completed the last couple of days:

-GUI: Fixed inconsistent close button sizes.
-GUI: All windows should have titles in the title bar.
-GUI: Fixed Mega Menu Clipping of really long names
-GUI: Added horizontal scrolls to several lists, including the side panel.
-GUI: Dynamically adjust list and drop down boxes's scroll button amounts. One click should now be close to one scroll page. (Bottom of the list becomes the top of the list and you see the rest of the items below.)
-GUI: Newspaper stocks now show 2 decimal places.
-GUI: Added fuel type information to several view engine and view vehicle windows that were missing it.
-GUI: Added some missing information from the Auto Commands Mega Menu Help Buttons.
-GUI: Licensing List show now refresh after you make changes.
-GUI: Fixed World Map/Mega Menu charts that were showing revenues instead of units sold.
-GUI: Fixed several graphs and buttons in the showroom.
-GUI: Most window titles should be centered in the window now. (Some windows may not be, due to size constraints.)
-GUI: Decimal places were fixed in line charts. Other chart types will be fixed when we upgrade the web browser after full release.
-GUI: Some charts now have digit grouping. Other chart types will have digit grouping when we upgrade the web browser after full release.
-GUI: Fixed several overlapping text issues when playing the game with large font.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in racing competition view, that did not show player's race team if they were not using default team name.
-Gameplay: Adjusted Random History's inflation rates. There is now less time with negative inflation/growth rates.
-Gameplay: Readjusted base vehicle popularity values to how popular a vehicle type is at introduction time.
-Gameplay: TurnEvents.xml popularity changes are now multiplied into the popularity values instead of added.
-Maps: Added Static Vehicle Popularity growth rates for all vehicle types.
-Mod Tools: Added an importer system to Vehicle Popularity and Newspaper tools in the Turn Events Editor.
-Gameplay: Disable Static Popularity Growth advanced game option. This disables the popularity growths in the TurnEvents.xml file. Vehicles will start with popularity values between 2% and higher based on the starting popularity of the vehicle type in the components.xml file.
-Gameplay: Random Vehicle Popularity advanced game option. This randomizes the starting popularity of vehicle types.
-Gameplay: Adjusted the dynamic vehicle popularity growth. Growth rates are less, but effect all vehicle types instead of just the top and bottom vehicle types.
-Bugfix: Fixed exploit that allowed a player to use in construction factories to produce war munitions.
-Bugfix: Possible fix for low definition textures and showroom crashing for extremely low powered GPUs.
-Bugfix: Fixed buffer overflow when purchasing a company with over 4billion shares issued.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue where consolidating companies does not transfer over the target company stocks and leaves them orphaned.
-Bugfix: Fixed late game bug that was causing R&D estimated GearBox unit costs to be higher than the designed price.
-Bugfix: Fixed an issue causing tax refunds not to be issued if you over paid. (Think you can fool us GCIRS?!)
-Bugfix: Fixed a bug that could leave vehicles unlisted in factories if you used the replace and discontinue system, then discontinue the in development replacement vehicle.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug causing Auto Production not to update production quantity after factory reconditioning.
-Gameplay: RnD->Mod->Vehicle will now show a list of discontinued vehicles if you have no active vehicles. If you have no vehicles what so ever, it will then display an error message.
-GUI: Added growth trends arrows to Body and Fuel demand charts.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#16
The final compiles for v1.23.4 are being done. We should be ready for an update tomorrow.

Work continues on the maps. As the last few days have mostly went to play testing, building a list of things to fix, and editing content. It's a long and boring process, but it needs to be done.

-Maps: Ported Newspaper articles to all maps except Classic Map.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
Reply
#17
v1.24 Release Candidate 1 is about 50% completed. Most of the effort has gone into implementing various Steam related features. Here's what I've done so far:

-Bugfix: Fixed crash caused by French Did You Know file.
-Bugfix: Fixed Q4 taxes not being charged and incorrect amount being reported in reports.
-Maps: Completed Base City Map's City Events.
-Maps: Finished computer assisted grammar and spell check of Base City Map's Newspaper Items.
-Maps: Ported Base City Map's City Events and Newspaper articles to Base Territory Map and Classic Territory Map.
-Steam Stuff: Finished creation of trading card rewards. (The trading cards are being worked on now, but they are subject to Steam's approval.)
-Steam Stuff: Implemented Steam Workshop Uploader in the mod tools.



Currently I am working on the Workshop Downloader in the Settings Editor. (Since you have to switch mods in the Settings Editor, might as well do everything in there...) Currently this is about 75% finished. I am actually working on the unsubscribe (Delete) code right now, and then it's just a matter of cleaning up the GUI. After this, I will switch to a couple medium sized bugs that were reported for v1.23.4, then i do Steam Achievements. Again, Achievements are subject to Steam's approval...

After achievements are implemented, I will work on cleaning up some issues with the mod tools. If I am still waiting on approval for Trading Cards or Achievements, I will make an example mod as a tutorial. Once that is all finished RC1 will be release, and I will go back to the grind stone with micro-bug fixing in RC2... Then 1.24 should be ready! Smile

I also hit a snag when implementing Steamworks in the Windows mod tools. It seems that Steam doesn't release mingw libraries. Thus forcing me to rework the entire build system for the Windows Mod Tools. Sad
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#18
Originally posted: Jul 14 @ 2:41pm

Workshop support is now fully implemented. Moders can now upload their mods to the workshop using the Mod Tools, and players can subscribe to mods in Steam and download the mods via the Settings Editor.

Work has also been done fixing several bugs in the Mod Tools. Mod and Map export is now working properly. I encourage moders to use these tools in order to reduce mistakes. But it's your choice.

A bug preventing restricted localized sub-components and non-localized sub-components from mixing together was fixed in the game.

I am currently working on making some Mod Tutorial Videos. These should make it easier to learn how to use these tools. While making the tutorial videos, I am also working on an example mod. This is required for the Steam Workshop to be deployed.

Outside of that, I implemented 34 Steam Achievements. This is about half of what I want to do. I will probably be adding a 5-10 per week until I reach the amount I want.

Steam Trading Cards were approved! We have a batch of cards, badges, backgrounds, and emojis coming out. Several Cards and Backgrounds were rejected. So I will be releasing these for free.


The current plans are for v1.24 RC1 to be released on Wednesday, but depending on how well audio recording and mod making goes, it might be Friday. With 1.24 RC2 the week after, and v1.24 the week after that.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#19
Originally posted: Jul 18 @ 9:12am

There is a slight delay in getting v1.24 RC1 released. I had hoped it would be today, but seems like porting the Steam integration to various operating systems did not go as smoothly as planned. (And compiling is extremely slow since I am down to 1 desktop machine running several VM while I wait for publisher issues to be resolved.) With some luck, it should be ready by Friday. In the meantime, I will continue to work on cutting workshop tutorial audio and editing video.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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#20
v1.24 RC1 was released. I will finish the audio editing with the mod tools videos, then switch to make the minimalist mod real quick. That should cover most of what remains of the mod tools tutorial videos/workshop code.
"great writers are indecent people, they live unfairly, saving the best part for paper.
good human beings save the world, so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead it means I made it." ― Charles Bukowski
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