1.24 Progress Thread

[Eric.B]

v1.24 RC2 will be released when I wake up in a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, due to the time it took to record and cut audio for the workshop tutorial videos, I was unable to start on the minimization mod or the remaining tutorial videos. My hope was to do it in this 4 day period between RC2 and v1.24, but we've fallen behind on the base premade vehicles, so I will have to spend those 4 days making a couple eras of cars.

Anyhoo, instead of working on the tutorials, I knocked out several tickets, but was unable to complete them all. Here is a list of what was in the tracker:

-GUI: AI vehicle length, width, and height now displayed in Showroom Marque Catalog and Marque Compare.
-GUI: Fixed several rounding and missing unit conversions in the Marque Catalog and Marque Compare systems.
-Gameplay: Reduced first time factory upgrade costs. Increased costs of additional upgrades.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug that could cause discontinued vehicle to not be displayed in the Mega Menu Branch even if it was still for sale.
-Gameplay: Removed the ability to use an in-development engine or vehicle for racing.
-Gameplay: Additional reduction to racing revenues.
-Gameplay: If you have a factory in a war zone, a high priority memo will be displayed when the war is over.
-GUI: Adjusted vehicle popularity "words" in the report.
-Gameplay: Adjustments to vehicle rating decline rates.
-Bugfix: Possible bug fix for a crash caused if the player discontinues a vehicle that is being outsourced to AI companies.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in the vehicles sold for the year memo.
-Bugfix: Fixed bug in the Paid Back Loan achievement.
-Achievements: 6 more achievements.
-GUI Added help buttons to Main Menu New Game. (Still need to do the Settings help buttons.)

[Eric.B]

v1.24 is all set! I will release it when I wake up tomorrow.

Here is the last few things taken care of:
-Artwork 1980s and 2010 premades added. (These will temporarily be used for 1990 and 2000.)
-Bugfix Fixed crash when terminating contracts.
-Bugfix Fixed Pango issues with Font Config on Modern Linux.
-GUI Standardized font in most HTML pages. Some more tweaking is needed.
-Bugfix Fixed regression in Base City Map that caused crash in French Morocco if the player started a game between 1930 and 1950 and clicked the Casablanca before Moroccan Independence.
-Gameplay Added additional conditionals for Strike Adverted achievement.
-Bugfix Fixed possible issue with City Skills Growth when growth values zero out.
-Bugfix Fixed SQL issues with Marketing achievement.

[Eric.B]

v1.24 SP1 should be coming out Friday assuming everything goes well with play testing.

-Steam Stuff: Implemented 12 new achievements.
-Steam Stuff: Fixed additional issues causing some achievements not to be triggered.
-Bugfix Fixed issue with unfunded research teams effecting average engineer salaries in HR.
-GUI: Changed AI starting amount selection ordering from Alphanumeric to map/mod maker order.
-GUI: Mouse wheel should scroll game GUI at one half a button click. Webbrowser scroll has been reduce by half.
-Bugfix Fix newspaper display bug that could show insanely high values for winning contracts.
-Gameplay: Adjustments done to vehicle top speed to return more effect to Gearboxes.
-Bugfix: Fixed Main Tutorial window continuously popping up even if you disabled tutorials.
-Bugfix: Fixed chassis prototyping bug that could cause the estimated finish date to be 32 months when it is actually much less.
-GUI: Added remaining help buttons to Main Menu.
-Artwork: Grey paints are more black.
-GUI: Fixed Linux Text Above sub-component buttons in assisted designer wraps.
-GUI: Assisted Designer, moved categories in Quick Details panels to the right..
-GUI: Components modification window will close if you end production of your only component.
-GUI: Increased spaces between end turn arrows.
-GUI: Fixed Advanced vehicle designer, selecting a chassis does not fill the info for the chassis unless the player clicks the chassis.
-GUI: Fixed Stock broker, Bottom of the company details cuts off the marque amount when playing with large text.
-GUI: Fixed competition date wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed bore and stroke wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed racing limitations wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed racing setup wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed Racing series filters having entries such as 0 and en
-GUI: Fixed fixed gearbox contracts requirements wrapping
-GUI: Fixed fixed R&D contract filter drop down widths.
-GUI: Fixed licensing engine text wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Dynamic font resizing for Factory/Branch/District drop downs in Mega Menu.
-GUI: Fixed fixed factory view details wrapping with large font.
-GUI: Fixed incorrect units being used for acceleration and braking.
-GUI: Benefits disabled message in HR when benefits are disabled.
-GUI: Fixed capitalization of dynamic text in some memos.
-Gameplay: Fixed incorrect dates on some memos.
-GUI: Fixed Auto Production restriction text cutoffs with large font.
-GUI Fixed induction systems overlapping in several places with longer induction types.

Probably a few more things that I failed to write down that I fixed.

[Eric.B]

Unfortunately, a cold slowed down my progress on SP2 over the last week. This was compounded by my other work draining my energy, which left me sleeping too much over the weekend. Sadly, the weekend is when I get the most work done on GC these days.

So the planned pre-design contest has been pushed back to September 7th. I'll make the announcement when that is ready to go. SP2 was pushed back from Wednesday to Friday Or Saturday depending on if I run into any issues.

So what has been taken care of since the last progress thread update?

We released a Hotfix due to crashing with some mods. This hotfix contained several SP2 tickets.

v1.24 SP1 HF1
-Bugfix: Fixed crash when player uses modded AI files.
-Bugfix: Displayed RPMs being higher than they should be.
-Bugfix: Fixed Autoproduction producing too many vehicles if the player messes with the branch district locking system before enabling Auto Production.
-Gameplay: Significant optimization to player production end turn processing speed. This should help players with large save files greatly.


v1.24 SP2 Tickets:
GUI: Fixed display of player outstanding shares in broker view when AI companies hold shares and are not willing to sell.
Gameplay: Reduced the effects of modifications and increased costs more.
Bugfix: Fixed modification exploit allowing the player to do more than 1 modification if they wait longer than 2 years.
GUI: Fixed Saved/Custom GUI overwriting the reports window size.
Bugfix: Fixed issue in racing where two series shared the same ID causing naming confusing.
Gameplay: Reduced random lawsuit settlement and lost cases costs.
Gameplay: Put in time limitations for random lawsuits based on player demand.
Modtools: Fixed a couple of issues with the Gearbox/Gears components editor.
Settings Editor: Fixed issues music/sound fx volumes
Settings Editor: Fixed issues with a few unit types.
GUI: Fixed word wrap with Author's name in Map Selection.
GUI: Dynamically change font size of End Turn company info based on length of the data.
GUI: Fixed some list over wrap due to engine layout name length.
GUI: Fixed alignment of Used Cars in World Map view competition lists.
GUI: Added commas to the City Information popup.
GUI: Fixed some word wrapping with the scrap checkbox for New Generation vehicles on Linux.
GUI: Fixed several word wrapping issues with large font in the Components Refit window.
GUI: Fixed GUI widgets becoming misplaced when resizing Mega Menu window.
Engine: Made the Purge Data system more aggressive. In a 1.1GB test save game, I was able to reduce it to 350MB. This also double reports generation speed. However at the cost of only having 5 years of historical production data. (Some additional optimizations are possibly coming to this system.)


There were a couple more things I worked on that people threw at me via forms, chat, and email.. But to be honest, I am too tired to dig them out. With that, Enjoy! I'm going to bed! ːGCTeddyː

[Eric.B]

v1.24 SP2 will be released after I am done typing all this stuff!

-GUI: Fixed chassis selection using incorrect player units.
-GUI: Fixed several wrapping issues in Vehicle Prototyping with large font.
-GUI: Added lobbying effectiveness percentage to lobbying screen.
-GUI: Added MIssed Sales to various reports.
-GUI: Fixed several large font wrapping issues with renew contracts window.
-GUI: Adjusted the banking overview panel so that scroll bar would take up less space.
-GUI: Fixed several large font wrapping issues in Banking Overview.
-GUI: Fixed Banking window resizing restrictions
-GUI: Moved line of credit application button to the static side panel. Button also now disappears after you sign up for a line of credit.
-GUI: Fixed issues with raycasting in the world map.
-GUI: Adjusted World Map Marketing summary font size to prevent possible wrapping.
-GUI: Fixed World Map Marketing resizing issues.
-GUI: Fixed Marketing manual entry wrapping issues.
-GUI: Fixed spelling mistake in Lobbying Header Image
-Gameplay Fixed possible overflow issue with credit fees.
-GUI Increased rounding amount for Banking Interest rates.
-GUI Changed default font in GUI sheet files. This may cause wrapping issues throughout the game, but also fixes some wrapping issues.

[Eric.B]

Work continues as always:

-Bugfix: Fixed possible crash when outsourced AI vehicles are discontinued through mass means.
-Bugfix: AI Gearbox manufacturing requirements ratings were too high.
-Bugfix: Fixed incorrect fuel economy values in ratings window.
-Gameplay: MPG can now be a decimal value.
-GUI: "Save" and "Save As" now displays a message when saving is in progress.
-GUI: Clicking "New Game" on the Main Menu resets the new game options.
-GUI: Fixed skill adjustment achievement covering scroll bars.
-GUI: Auto Production Model Restriction lists now shows "All Vehicles" if no models are being restricted.
-GUI: Fixed double digit completion dates in advance designer panels a second time.
-GUI: Some fixes to the new defined font size system. (Specifically the New Game Options Windows.)
-Gameplay: 12 new achievements.
-Gameplay: Additional tweaks on the AI component selection system to reduce Single Cylinder and Two-Stroke from being paired together.
-Gameplay: Minimum Bond Amount removed.
-Bugfix: Fixed Bond rounding issues.
-Gameplay: Lowered Bond and Loan interest rates
-Gameplay: Improvements to the Credit Ratings system.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible random events that could cause departments to strike even if there were no employees in the department.
-GUI: Assisted designer now has warnings if the vehicle is too slow, and if an engine has less than 5 smoothness/comfort rating.
-Gameplay: Heavy balancing done to the Base Territory Map to reduce sales in late game.
-Gameplay: Additional tweaks done to the AI for Base Territory Maps and other small "territory" maps.
-Mod Tools: Fixed several selection issues with the Components AI Pop Table.
-Engine Removed Shader cache. Shaders will now be generated at run time, which will slow down initial loading, but hopefully reduce crashes caused by bad updates.


There was probably a couple more things that I took care of that wasn't ticketed. Been a heavy support week.

[Eric.B]

Releasing SP3 now,

-GUI: Fixed wrapping issue with large fonts in Advance Car Designer Vehicle Popularity panel.
-Engine: Implemented system to prevent RnD License GUI (and others) from getting corrupted due to save gui and game updates.
-Mod Tools: Fixed stuck engine layout end year spinner box.

[Eric.B]

SP4 is a couple days late, but it should be ready Friday or Saturday.

He's what's in it:
-Mod Tools: Fixed removal of sub-components that are no longer in the Components.xml file that are AI Components Popularity File.
-Translations: Translation system is now available in game, Click the Help Button then Translate.
-GUI: Attempted to make Drop Down Box mouse wheel scrolling faster. Still needs some testing.
-Gameplay: Increased marketing and racing's effect on consumer population specific to vehicle models. I.E. customers not in a pool for all models, but just for the specific vehicle.
-Gameplay: Racing series will now show up one year before they start in the racing series lists. You are not able to start a team in this planning stage, but you are able to view the series restrictions in case you want to produce a design for the series.
-GUI: Clone sliders systems now works with in-development vehicles or components.
-Bugfix: Fixed Engine Saved Sliders not loading proper Bore and Stroke.
-Bugfix: Fixed Bore and Stroke range checks for saved engine sliders.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with Modify engine which could cause power rating to decline.
-GUI: Fixed issue with the Auto-Save GUI checkbox which caused it not to be checked when system is enabled.
-Bugfix: Fixed destroyed factories events not canceling upgrades or rebuilds.
-Artwork: Added some player created designs! Remember, you can still submit your designs. For more information: https://steamcommunity.com/games/285110/...0869879108
-Gameplay: Reduced AI's margin selling outsourced vehicles. Also tweaked branch prices.
-GUI: Added GUI final submission date to the contract side panel.
-GUI: HR wages now show a range of wages instead of an average for job positions that have multiple employees (manufacturing and engineering).
-GUI: HR will now hide if you have auto-production and auto-wage enabled.
-GUI: Branch and Factory Mega Menu's will now hide if you have no vehicles designed.
-Gameplay: Dealership growth and effects have been overhauled.
-Gameplay: Reduced the AI vehicle design time by approximately half.
-Gameplay: Temporary balancing change for City Maps, early year of sales in some high buyer rate countries such as Italy have been increased. This code will be removed when I implement interpolation of city buyer ratings for SP5.
-GUI: A bunch of minor GUI fixes such as over lapping text, cut off widgets, etc. I didn't keep a list as it was a fix while playing sort of session. A lot more of these to come.
-Gameplay: Tweaked low funded racing team's results, which was causing horse power to be slightly more powerful than it should be. More tweaks may be coming.

Most likely a couple more things I didn't write down and/or forgot that I did.

[Eric.B]

v1.24 SP5 will be released as soon as I am done with these notes. Sadly I lost a weekend due to various of catastrophic issues outside of game development. So SP5 isn't as full as I wanted it to be. But there was a couple issues that needed to be addressed, so no need to delay it.
Here's what is in it.

-Gameplay: City specific buy ratings now interpolate between the city.xml files.
-Maps: Increased small city and low percapita city specific buy rate in early game years on all city-based maps. Also made some adjustments to European city specific buy rates in early game years to increase sales.
-Maps: Added missing infrastructure and fuel data to all maps.
-Gameplay: Dividends now split when the stock splits.
-Bugfix: Fixed development pace slider exploit when designing a new trim.
-Bugfix: Fixed month delay in the End, Scrap, and Replace old model system.
-Gameplay: Total Unit Costs and Manufacturing Costs located on the branch distribution side panels now uses previous turn data instead of estimating future data. This should make it more static, but will not reflect changes in costs until the next turn.
-Gameplay: I finally caved and made factory production lines slider only effect the number of factory lines and the tech slider effect everything else when designing a factory.
-Gameplay: Price and size adjustments when building a factory.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with build factory production line slider adjusting the price and number of vehicles that can be built, even though the production lines do not increase.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with low level conflict not effecting demand enough.
-GUI: Price Change Auto Commands now work on a district level if you have a district selected.
-GUI: Adjusting shipping distance on the world map will now show you the maximum transportation costs per vehicle.
-GUI: Added Units Shipped to Contract Revenues report.
-GUI: Color coded war status on New Game Map.
-GUI: Added a breakdown of a vehicle's buyer rating to the Wealth Distribution Chart. Click the Line Graph button next to where you enter the price of a vehicle to see it.
-GUI: Enabled previous/next arrow buttons for Mega Menu Districts.
-Artwork: Added more player designed pre-made vehicles! If you have any to submit, feel free to do so! https://steamcommunity.com/games/285110/...0869879108
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with AI engine designs that could cause bad data in save games.
-Bugfix: Small bug fix for vehicle fuel economy specs which could cause the design to run at optimal economy all the time.

[Eric.B]

Work on SP6 continues. This supplemental patch is going to take a little longer than the previous ones because SP5 was released a little early to take care of some big issues and because I want to run through a few play tests and knock out a bunch of minor nit-picks. All in the name of polish before I switch to upgrading parts of the engine and filling up the missing text content.

Anyway, What has been done? Here is an incomplete list. I may miss recording some unticketed stuff I worked on.

-Bugfix: Fixed development pace slider disappearing when designing a new generation vehicle.
-Gameplay: Adjustments to new trim and new generation development time when not changing components.
-GUI: Disabled zoom hot keys when text box has keyboard focus.
-Gameplay: New Marques now inherit 75% of parent company's image and skill ratings.
-Gameplay: Expanded marque's image and skill growth to include component designs.
-Bugfix: Fixed "Low Morale" display when contracts are assigned to a factory.
-Gameplay: AI now purges high end vehicles from sale in small cities if they don't sell any units over a period of time. This should speed up turn times slightly.
-Gameplay: Chassis weights have been increased slightly.
-Gameplay: Increased frame's and drivetrain's effect on chassis weights. Minor reduction for other sub components.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with Buyer Ratings Table that showed all vehicles of a type instead of just the vehicles for sale in the selected city or district.
-Gameplay: Designer paint color will no longer reset after you paint something.
-GUI: Click the GUI will no longer cause an error sound when paint or accessory tools are enabled.
-Gameplay: Marketing Budgets have been added to Stock Reports.
-Gameplay: Reports header has been reorganized. Hopefully it is easier for players to find things instead of just throwing the miscellaneous reports into Reports 1 and Reports 2...
-Gameplay: Branch Reports now has wear information.
-Gameplay: Added Monthly Report to the reports header.
-Gameplay: Additional revenues information added to Quarterly and Annual Reports.
-GUI: RnD rating numbers are now displayed all the time instead of requiring the player to hover over the stars. This has required us to spread out the bottom panel more.
-GUI: Added Project Profits to RnD->View Vehicle.
-GUI: Assisted designer initial sliders positions have been corrected.
-Gameplay: AI production frequency has been replaced with AI Vehicle Design Frequency. This adjusts how many vehicle designs the AI will create.
-GUI: Last year race winnings for series is now displayed in the race series detail's panel on the Racing Budget window.
-Gameplay: Fixed issues with the AI that caused them not to discontinue designs that are listed in Licensing and Outsourcing systems.
-Gameplay: AI high performance cars should be more high performance now.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash when tabbing to name a vehicle trim's after already designing a trim.
-Gameplay: Adjustments to minimum vehicle fuel economy based on the engine design.


There are probably two or three more undocumented things, I just can't remember right now. :\

[Eric.B]

SP6 is ready for release! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get on my computer much over the last week to finish up the release. Hopefully external factors preventing me from working will stop so I can get what I need to do done. I'm about 2 weeks behind where I want to be at this time.

Anyway, I just a have bit more writing, such as this post, then SP6 will be released.

So what else is in SP6?
-Gameplay: 12 Additional Achievements
-Bugfix: Fixed some lawsuits turning negative due to high vehicle sales revenues.
-Gameplay: Merged CarReports and CityReports into 40 or so files, thus reducing the amount of reports the game generates in large save games.
-Gameplay: Removed historical Car Reports and City Reports. You only have the latest month now.
-Gameplay: Optimized car reports generation, thus reducing turn times significantly on large save games.
-Engine: Moved some historical vehicle data to the vehicle data table, thus allowing the engine to purge historical records and reduce save game size significantly for large save games.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing matured bonds not to clear out of company's meta information.
-Bugfix: Fixed mega menu crash when clicking arrows with no factories/branches.

[Eric.B]

The final supplemental patch for 1.24 is finished! If I can stay awake (already 6am) a little longer, I'll have it released to everyone before I doze off for the afternoon.

So what's in v1.24 SP7? Quite a bit.

Primary focus of SP7 was to fix overlapping and resizing issues with the GUI. I believe I have fixed most of these problem areas, but some may still exist. That being said, I have figured out a way to improve window resizing with side by side lists. This will require a bit of code change in the engine, so it will be taken care of with the Engine Updates.

Beyond that, the regular assortment of bug fixes as normal with a Supplemental Patch.

-GUI: Fixed text overlapping issues in several locations.
-GUI: Fixed resize issues in several locations.
-Artwork: Added more user made predesigns! Thanks everyone who submitted!
-GUI: If music player is open and the song changes, the new song will be selected in the list.
-Gameplay: Buying AI companies with outsourced components will now discontinue any designs with bending outsourced contracts. This will prevent orphaned designs.
-Engine: Added placeholders for SaveGames and SavedCars folders so Steam will make sure you have them if you verify files.
-GUI: Components now have a total production report located in the Showroom. In the future I may break this down into vehicles.
-GUI: Up and Down Arrow Keys will now select the next item in lists if the list was the last item clicked.
-GUI: List should no longer return to the top after doing an action on a selected item.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue that was allowing players to license in development components.
-Gameplay: Increased the frequency of a dividend stripping lawsuit.
-Gameplay: Reduced the maximum amount of dividends to prevent financing the dividend.
-GUI: Adjust dividend based on EPS is checked by default now.
-GUI: Bottom bar now refreshes after purchasing a company.
-GUI: Fixed a place or two where vehicle names were missing the year.
-Engine: Updated OpenAL in Linux. Sound should now be working on Pulse Audio distros.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue which was causing militaries to use city names.
-Bugfix: Fixed taxes being off set by a month in the Expense Reports.
-GUI: Fixed Gearbox Overall rating being miss labeled as Performance.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible crash when resizing some windows too small.
-Bugfix: Project Profits values always positive.
-Gameplay: Adjusted AI's build branch behavior for when the company is not making money, has a less than 7% of the world map in branches, and has a boat load of cash.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with the component modification system that caused the new price not to be displayed.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with several predesigned vehicles with negative aerodynamic drag calculations. Thus causing bad data in the prototyping system.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with factory upgrades that caused the player not to be charged for a month.
-Bugfix: Fixed factory workers striking during the middle of major wars when they're no longer producing anything.

There were probably several more bug fixes and GUI tweaks that were unrecorded or buried in emails/forum posts. I have been pretty bad at keeping up with the change long this month. Sorry about that!

OK, time to type up the announcement, then I can release this stuff and go to bed.

[Eric.B]

Always forget to post stuff here. Can't blame me with how inactive these forums are now... Should pick up again someday though...

After completing Supplemental Patch #7, I switched over to updating the game's engine. The engine updates went rather well. However, during that time, some major issues with SP7 was reported. So when I reached a stopping point with the updated engine, I merged the code base with the old engine and worked on what was to become v1.24 SP 8.

SP8 mainly fixed several bugs reported to me since November 15th. It also our first wide release of the 64-bit Engine. The 64-bit Engine will be the default for all users. However, a new Branch will be launched so that you can access the 32-bit build from a 64-bit computer if you have any issues with the 64-bit version of the game. Currently, v1.23 Stable Build and v1.22 Legacy Build are 32-bit as well. As more updates come out, those will cycle over to the 64-bit engine.

Since I was unable to finish all the features I wanted to implement in the 64-bit build, there will be a v1.24 SP9. However, it should be a small release and mostly focused on 64-bit engine features, such as resizeable reports windows.

I am currently in the process of building and testing all the updates. It will take some time, as there are now 6 builds to test and verify, 4 of which are on virtual machines running on an old computer.

So what's in the SP8 update?

-Bugfix: Fixed top speeds of finished vehicles not matching top speed in ratings windows.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible negative weight modifiers if weight to hp ratio was rounded to 15 or 38 kg per hp.
-Bugfix: Fixed global demand randomization values not being tied to administration skills. Now missed demand for global shipping should be the same as shipping range demand estimations.
-Bugfix: Changed ambiguous wording in "contracts can't be bid on" memos.
-Bugfix: FIxed several issues with awards and race championships in the Showroom vehicle report.
-Bugfix: Fixed marketing funds not being cleared when spinning off or selling a marque and including branches.
-Gameplay: Now generating first turn contracts.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with Auto-production restriction lists which was causing the lists not to refresh.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue causing discontinued parts which were being licensed to AI companies not to clear out their licensing revenues during the end turn phase. This fixed an issue with the licensing revenues report having more income than listed in other reports.
-Gameplay: Increased image growth rates dynamically if the target skill is much higher than the current skill.
-Gameplay: Linked marque's researching skills with parent companies'.
-Bugfix: Fixed possible negative loan situations.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with branch wear reports not having the correct wear amounts for every branch.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with Chassis RnD View name sort.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with holdings list not showing after taking your own company private.
-Bugfix: Fixed late game possibility to go bankrupt if playing on infinite cash mode.
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with year interpolation system that caused nation and flag changes not to register if starting in a later game year.
-Engine: Merged GearCity Beardgine 1 and Beardgine 2 code bases together.
-Bugfix: Fixed contract crashes in respect to not having a component selected in the contracting lists whilst bidding or canceling a submission.
-Bugfix Fixed sliders loading crash in 64-bit build due to VS2013 code optimization system.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash related to hitting + or - while RnD is loading or doesn't have keyboard focus.
-Bugfix: Fixed crash in tutorials on Linux 32-bit build, 64-bit build, and possibly other systems.
-X64 Engine Implemented a popup warning for OpenGL players on 64-Bit windows build, letting them know that the DirectX9 system is probably better now.
-X64 Engine Implemented non-character keys for web browser Linux and Mac 64-bit builds.
-Bugfix: Fixed HR help button not having proper text.
-Bugfix: Fixed WW1 and WW2 achievements triggering a year too late.

And as always, a few more minor fixes here and there that I failed to document or remember.

[Eric.B]

Finally got around to building a new machine to handle compiling duties. Hopefully this will make release days a little less time consuming. I have released several hotfixes to address crash issues only found in the 64-bit build for Windows. Everyone should already have those.

Beyond that, I have implemented GUI scaling for all builds of the game. It will be in the SP9 update. This should help out folks with HiDPI monitors and/or poor eye site. You can adjust the size of the UI up to 100%. (And if you're savvy enough you can edit the settings files for more.)

There are also a couple of bug fixes which I will mark down in the next post. (I have to go through some forum posts for tickets and what have you, good time to make a list then.)

Next I'll be moving on to attempt to implement resizeable browser windows (reports) for all 64-bit builds. With any luck, that will go smoothly as well.

[Eric.B]

So we have some good news, some bad news, and some OK-ish news.

Good first,
I was able to get user controlled resizeable reports working in the 64 bit build with the OpenGL!

Now the bad news,
The user controlled resizeable reports did not work in DirectX!

You see, DirectX9 is so old, it comes from an era where some video cards could not handle non-power of two textures. So DX9 support of anything that wasn't 2^n is sketchy at best. On top of this, we have to create a real time texture and apply it to a 2d space. DirectX9 has some nit-picks with that. The browser in the 32-bit build only used windows that were 1024x512 or 1024x1024 because of this.

In addition to all this, our GUI library was screwing up stuff anytime it caused a resize of any part of the GUI window the browser sits in. Messy stuff (not my code!)


Now the OK-ish news.
There is a sliver lining to all this. The DirectX9 render can still support NPOT textures, but they have to be a certain size, a certain ratio, and could not be molested in anyway by the GUI. So instead of allowing the player to adjust the size of the Reports windows, I have hard coded sizes based upon the player's resolution. This means common issues, such as having a 1024x512 reports window while running the game in window mode, on a 1080p monitor, with Window 10's chunky taskbar, is gone. You'll have a nice 1024x880 reports window. If you have a 4k monitor. You'll no longer have a 1024x1024 reports window. You'll have a 2048x2048 window. (Although early tests with a friend's nVidia 1060 in a KVM showed that the FPS rate is a bit low due to CEF). And so forth. I believe there are 6 different sizes.

With all that in mind, power of two textures are still significantly faster than non-power of two textures. They're also less error prone due to drivers issues. And the 32-bit browser does not support NPOT. So with all that in mind, I have introduced a new settings checkbox to enable dynamic reports sizes. By default the game will use the old fixed values, so you will have to enable this setting yourself.

With the vast majority of players using the DirectX/Win64 combo. This configuration superseded the manual resizeable reports for OpenGL/Linux/OSX users. Sadly I lost a couple of days debugging all this crap. But it's working. I still have to test it on an Intel GPU to confirm there is no major driver architectural issues with the code. But it all seems to be working well on what I have ran it on.

I have a couple more 64-bit engine related stuff to take care of, then I will move on to bugs to finish up the SP9 release. Hopefully then I can get working on v1.24.1!

Bed time for now, night!

[Eric.B]

Missed a few more post on here sadly. If memory serves me, I was having connection problems or something, and the post was failing. Either way, here is what was missed:

SP9 is just around the corner. Assuming no hangups, it should be ready to go sometime this weekend. If it's a good release (in that there aren't a lot of issues) I should finally be able to jump to v1.24.1 and v1.25.

So here are a few things that are in SP9 as of right now:
-Engine Scale GUI Setting. This setting allows you to increase the size of the GUI. This is particularly helpful for HiDPI monitors.
-64-Bit Engine: Dynamic Report Size setting. This causes the reports windows size to be closer your vertical resolution. However, this requires a little more performance for 2k+ resolutions.
-64-Bit Engine: Removed unsupported resolutions from the in game settings drop down.
-64-Bit Engine: Fixed incorrect resolution being displayed in the in game settings with fullscreen enabled.
-64-Bit MacOS Engine: Implemented Fullscreen mode.
-Engine: Hard frame limiter can now be adjusted via settings.xml file. (Coming to the External Settings Editor as well.)
-64-Bit Windows Engine: Which Monitor the game will open on can now be set in the settings.xml file via an index number. This is only supported in Windows. (Coming to the External Settings Editor as well, however it will not poll how many monitors you have. You'll have to enter the proper index number yourself.)
-GUI: Resize scaling to center implemented for side by side lists.
-Tutorials: Fixed some issues with the tutorial which allowed the player to return to RnD or did not popup a message when components designs were not finished.
-Tutorials: Disabled normal to nightmare modes for tutorial plays initiated from the Main Menu.
-Gameplay: Increased spec effects on racing and contract wins.
-Bugfix: Fixed the game not rewarding revenues for the last month of a contract in some cases.
-Engine Added weight and size modifiers to Car Type in the components.xml file. Both default to a normal value of 1. Currently size has no effect on anything in game.
-Gameplay Added weight values for all vehicle types in the game.
-Gameplay: Car Type's weight now effects the weight of the vehicle.
-Gameplay: Tweaks to vehicle's weight effect on fuel economy and maximum fuel economy achievable by an engine design in a vehicle.
-64-Bit Engine: Fixed javascript error popup when viewing reports.
-64-Bit Engine: Automatic reports page zooming based on GUI scaling.
-Gameplay: Ordering more outsourced units will replace the previous order.
-GUI: Contracted outsourced units are now sorted by name.
-Gameplay: Vehicle Image growth rates have been increased by about 20%.
-Bugfix: Fixed a couple issues with new trim design times.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with competition charts.
-Bugfix: Fixed issues with Factory Expense table.

SP9 release, and a couple more tickets knocked out:
-Gameplay: Minor tweaks to credit rating score calculation
-Bugfix: Fixed issue with component amounts not being shown in stock window.
-Bugfix: Fixed contract renewals having incorrect amounts in memos.
-Gameplay: Adjustments have been made to the bulk production discount values.