TFTD Extender

[Nilex]

Thanks man for checking into it Arigato + bow down head

It's been a decade since i last played it but i don't recall that problem appearing on DOS. Altho this is GOLD version now so it's probably different. I'm only playing it a short while (GAME_4 is all i got so far) so i can't tell. I will report later when i have more information however.

For now, I'll try reloading before site-1 appears and until it loads properly. My mild OCD wont let me any other way...

[localhosed]

One thing I should make clear: once you choose a level of the tech tree mods to start with, some of the changes will be saved in the game files. Changing the tech level option later won't undo these changes as the game loads the data from the files after the extender has applied all of its changes. They only way to undo or alter these changes would be to edit the dat files of the saved game. I added more explanation to the INI readme file and changed the INI entry to be "Start with Alternate Tech Tree=0"

 

Hoever, I rearranged a few of the commands which I think will resolve some issues. I did some quick tests and they seem to work.

Thanks for all your feedback and help guys!

 

What commands and what issues? I tested this DLL (1.03p3) with unmodded TFTD but didn't know what to look for. If you were responding about aqua plastics, with this DLL, it was the same for me. I started a new game and downed a sub, recovered it with 8 aqua plastics but the research was not available once I had the plastics in stores. Magnetic Navigation and Ion Beam Acceleration were available because of recovered sub(s) though. Those have been working in my game since 1.03 .

I think I might be able to use a savegame editor to enable that in the mean time.

[Tycho]

What commands and what issues? I tested this DLL (1.03p3) with unmodded TFTD but didn't know what to look for. If you were responding about aqua plastics, with this DLL, it was the same for me. I started a new game and downed a sub, recovered it with 8 aqua plastics but the research was not available once I had the plastics in stores. Magnetic Navigation and Ion Beam Acceleration were available because of recovered sub(s) though. Those have been working in my game since 1.03 .

I think I might be able to use a savegame editor to enable that in the mean time.

 

Did you change the line for Tech Tree in the INI?

 

As for changes, there were lines in the executable that set the bytes for sub construction so that it could not be researched when found, which I removed so that my changes in the mod would take effect. Why the programmers needed to include these line of code is a mystery to me. I sent you a personal message that explained how to edit the file to manually set the bytes for sub construction to the correct values.

 

As a good rule of thumb: any item that a mod or patch makes available when found will have those options stored in the RESEARCH.DAT file. If you lower the Alternate tech option to a level that would undo those changes, it won't apply for already saved games as the saved game information gets read after Extender makes its modifications.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Tycho

[darkestaxe]

I think TFTDExtender is more then complete and usable enough to be in the TFTD downloads section here on strategycore and under utilities on the Ufopedia. Why reserve it for people who are actually on the forums when theres probably hundreds that would use it if they knew about it.

[localhosed]

I think maybe a good way to let people know about it is in this thread on steam forums :

https://forums.steamp...d.php?t=1146530

 

But I decided not to post there about it because Tycho has some additions to the readme coming up. But what do you think, Tycho?

If I were to advertise now I would maybe post suggestions for a 'most compatible for most users' INI setup, since for me the game blackscreens (won't run) fullscreen (the current default) without D3D=1 . New or casual users might get frustrated if they have problems like that, coming straight from a new steam install. But I really don't know what works best for most people.

 

I think those things for the readme will be important for people who are new to tftdextender and INI editing in general. And maybe have just bought TFTD and don't remember much about the game.

 

But I think around now is a good time for TFTDExtender to be known as much as possible, since in around 3 months the new firaxis game will be getting attention, and Openxcom steadily grows. (on the other hand, I think TFTD support is not a high priority for openxcom right now..)

 

...There's also a post for the excellent Xcomutil 9.7 there : https://forums.steamp...d.php?t=1113400

, which I thought had a down official website, but it seems to be back up now.

[Tycho]

If you want to mention the Extender on any forums, be my guest. I've mentioned it on a few. It always helps to let people know what works for you as a way to show how people can customize it to their needs/liking. For example, I have never need to use the D3D as the basic video pitch setting was just fine. I'd be curious to know how many people have to run D3D.

[Bomb Bloke]

With the pitch fix, the top and bottom of the screen is pushed outside of my display as it can't handle the 8:5 aspect ratio (... though I've played enough that I don't really need to see the buttons to know what they do). Some LCDs just aren't that flexible. At least mine will try 320x200, most modern ones just flat out won't do it.

 

The D3D fix is slower, and causes my screen to go into a 4:3 resolution - the game window isn't stretched to fit, meaning it's letterboxed, but everything is at least visible. Alongside the slight slowdown, the scaling effect means the pixels aren't square, so things seems to change shape slightly as they move or the screen scrolls (very noticeable on the mouse pointer). So I'd recommend just using the pitch fix when possible then getting folks to switch to D3D if it doesn't work.

 

Better to encourage people to tweak the settings then use a pre-defined set, otherwise, where's the fun?

 

I wouldn't mind putting the extender in our files section, but at the moment I can't... since the recent site upgrade Pete hasn't had time to set up access. With any luck that'll be sorted in a week or so. (This means I can't post updates for my own kit currently either... unless I embed them in a forum post or something, but I'm too lazy to do that then clean it up later ).

[Tycho]

BB, what OS do you run when playing?

[localhosed]

I can run without video pitch=1 but haven't tested it other than that. Can't run without d3d=1 after more testing today. I'm on a radeon 6850 with catalyst 12.3(?) on windows 7 64-bit on a 16:10 1680x1050 LCD display .

I can't fix the maybe wrong screen ratio, even with the screen ratio INI setting , it is irregular with any setting I have tried and any screen resolution, any monitor scaling (on/off/match screen ratio , gpu scaling on/off)some rows and columns are irregularly thinner than others at the best case. IIRC seb76 might have said something about it being necessary or side effect of D3D=1..I don't remember.

 

.. VirtualBox might run TFTDextender with Windows xp, which would let the simulated monitor use lower resolution.

[Tycho]

I've been running XPsp3 since the beginning at 1200x800 on an ATI raedon graphics adapter (in my laptop) and have only ever needed video pitch=1. The screen ratio as always been perfect for me. I have limited exposure to windows Vista or 7. Do they have the option to run programs in compatibility mode and, if so, have you tried them?

[localhosed]

I haven't been able to get the CE TFTD executable to run directly using any compatibility settings in Windows 7. Maybe I am forgetting some sort of trick, I don't know. I tried compatibility for windows x sp2, sp3, windows 98/ME, windows 2000, disable visual themes, desktop composition, 256 color mode, admin mode, all settings for all users, nothing seemed to work. I tried the patcher included with unmodded CE TFTD. Same thing. Maybe a different patcher would work, but I like TFTDExtender with Combomod more for now.

 

Meanwhile in Mega Primus :

Virtualbox using windows 95/98 is the best way to get Apocalypse to work for me, it runs best that way. Under windows xp , you've got to adjust speed and use VDMsound, and possibly mouse speed and installation problems. In Virtualbox with windows 95/98 , rarely it crashes or has garbled sound. And then windows 95/98 just locks-up/crashes more often for no obvious reason compared to windows xp/vista/7/8.

[Bomb Bloke]

I've never known a computer to correctly display the CE games without either outright killing video hardware acceleration or using a pitch/D3D patch. Think I might've heard of *one* person online getting it to work without any of those tweaks... Out of however many year's worth of posts.

 

Re Vista/7, there's a special "application compatibility" toolkit in the OS that's separate to the more obvious settings. Blade sussed it out and included a way to configure it for the CE games with his XcomUtil releases (\XcomUtil\Patches\Xcom Vista Patch.exe). This goes as deep as turning off acceleration for the games, so putting aside timer issues this allows Vista/7 to run the games pretty much perfectly without the use of loaders.

 

I have two machines, an XPProSP2 desktop (the "workhorse") and a 7 laptop. The XP machine can display the game perfectly using just the pitch fix if I switch the monitor to a more versatile one (eg, a CRT); I suspect that if the usual display didn't try to pretend it can handle 320x200, the game (or video card driver) would sort something out at a higher resolution with a scaler (like D3D mode forces). The 7 machine always scales, pillarboxing a 4:3 image on its wide display - thanks to Blade's OS compatibility tweak the loaders are mostly optional, though extra timer fixes are nice.

 

Don't know how interested you are but I can pull DxDiag reports for the machines if you like.

 

Some machines don't really have timer issues. My XP computer doesn't. The 7 computer is more powerful (all-around except in terms of storage and PCI slots), but not so much more that it explains why auto-scrolling is completely unusable regardless of in-game settings. Geoscape speed is more or less acceptable on either unit.

 

Usually I try to keep loaders and such things out of it, because I don't really "play" the games. I've probably spent far more time coding/documenting related stuff then playing.

[localhosed]

I'm very glad to hear that, thank you bomb bloke. I used Bladefirelight's new Xcomutil plenty before, but it has so many features I missed that one. I'll try it out.

 

In my TFTD CE on windows 7 I noticed that changing the scroll speed in tactical somehow also slows down tile animations, a lot, but it just so happens that when I slow down scroll speed enough that the tile animations look similar to 'normal' speed as in Dos versions, the scrolling is so slow that it can't be used for playing the game. I wonder what's happening there. I don't know if that is part of CE, or partly something TFTDExtender does or helps along with framerate max INI setting, or neither.

 

I am pretty sure my LCD monitor can't use resolutions lower than 640x480, as to the hardware explanations for that I don't know. Sometimes low resolution modes don't work because of the video card/os/program, but I forget what I read about that a year or two ago.

 

Thanks for offering to give me dxdiag reports, but I don't know what I could find or use in them. Unless I have some weird problem later.

[localhosed]

I used Bladefirelight's xcomutil 'xcom vista patch', It lets the game run with D3D=0. But it seems to override the video pitch=1 fix from TFTDExtender.

The game runs looking normally for about 200 milliseconds and then switches to a bright purple-green-yellow looking palette for GUI elements and then other parts of the game and stays that way. .. With Video pitch=0, the game uses that 'messed up' palette immediately.

 

As a side effect of not using D3D mode, the game uses blurry regular scaling. I remember noticing that before seb76's changes to UFOExtender to handle scaling. Ha ha.

 

TFTD runs fine without video pitch fix as long as I use D3D=1 in TFTDExtender, though I hadn't tested much, the geoscape menus look fine.

[Tycho]

The video settings have a tiered system D3D&HQ4x->D3D->HQ4x->video pitch, which determines the scaling ability. That is why I set video pitch to be default. Most people would need it as a basic requirement and enabling anything else will either work in tandem or preclude the video pitch setting.

[Tycho]

In base defence missions TFTD places x-com aquanauts differently from how UFO placed soldiers. TFTD shows no prefference for General Stores or for Living Quarters. It starts in the top right facility tile and uses all of the open spawn points before moving left. Once it reaches the left side it moves down and back to the right side of the base. This continues until all aquanauts are placed. This affects what is /isn't a defenseable starting base layout.

 

in the following base layout:

[HANGAR --------] [HANGAR --------] [HANGAR --------]

[lift -----]

[stores ] [Qrtrs --] [Lab -----] [shop ] [sonar ---]

 

Solution: Stick the access lift on the other side of the base. Spaced in the txt

[initial Base]

Apply=0

row1=SubPenTL SubPenTR SubPenTL SubPenTR SubPenTL SubPenTR

row2=SubPenBL SubPenBR SubPenBL SubPenBR SubPenBL SubPenBR

row3=Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty AirLock

row4=Empty Empty Empty Empty LivingQuarters GeneralStores

row5=Empty Empty Empty Empty Workshop Laboratory

row6=Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty StdSonar

 

I finally was able to look into this more. As I understand it, the placement algorithm seems to favor the center of the base in a row of units. When I reversed the initial optional layout design, which put the airlock and general stores on the opposite side of the base, I still had most of the aquanauts being randomly placed in the same areas. In addition, the algorithm seems to scatter the aliens even more. When I reversed the design, I had even more aliens spawning inside the main base. I think this was done purposefully to make base defense harder on the player.

 

addendum: A lot of the issues come from how the nodes have been arranged in the base modules. It seems Xcom units tend to favor the sensor and tech modules slightly more than living quarters and storage areas. They did include code that makes the algorithm have a preference for "misc2" nodes. The problem with alien spawning is that with the sub pens containing the subs instead of empty space, the number of spawn points is reduced which means that there is more chances of aliens appearing at neutral spawn points inside the base. I would have to become more familiar with reading the ROUTES.DAT file, but I suspect the problem is there are certain area that have spawn points that heavily favored by the randomizer. In particular, the living quarters. In all my various scenarios, it always seemed that there were often at least two aliens spawned in the first level no matter where in the base I located it.

 

At least testing this, I was also able to determine that the Base Disjoint bug fix is unnecessary and even puts the wrong tiles in the openings. It will be removed from the next version.

Edited July 15, 2012 by Tycho

[localhosed]

Will we get the same effect by changing the line for base disjoint in the INI as with your removal of it for the next version?

I'm looking forward to a base defense mission in my ongoing game soon.

All geoscape shortcuts seem to work fine.

....Using 'remove background land sound' today and MP3's.

[Tycho]

Will we get the same effect by changing the line for base disjoint in the INI as with your removal of it for the next version?

 

That's correct. I also located the code that makes the deep one "spit" instead of shoot normally. It seems to be leftover code from the celatid. I also found the code that makes the Bio-drone burn the ground as it moves. It seems to be leftover code from the silacoid.

[localhosed]

Thanks. I will disable that then and see what happens at the first base defense of the game.

About celatid/deep-one and bio-drone/silacoid , I probably am not the first person to guess that those were leftovers but I am sure you're the first person to actually find the code. Could those abilities be given to other enemies or units too? Ground burning civilians? Hah.

[Kasumimi]

Hello and thanks for your hard work Tycho.

 

When HQ4x=1 and D3D=1 the hq scaling doesn't work for me. When D3D=0 the HQ works (although the image is blurry but you can see the pixel smoothing clearly).

I must be doing something wrong -_-' any input?

 

Video Pitch=1
Max FPS=70
HQ4x=1
D3D=1
D3D Windowed=0

 

These are my settings where scaling isn't functioning. When D3D is set to 0 it works but the games feels much smoother with D3D on

[Space Voyager]

Shouldn't you people keep some of your modding strength for the new XCOM?!

 

Kidding, I'm just amazed over and over at how inspiring X-COM games still are.

[Tycho]

Hello and thanks for your hard work Tycho.

 

When HQ4x=1 and D3D=1 the hq scaling doesn't work for me. When D3D=0 the HQ works (although the image is blurry but you can see the pixel smoothing clearly).

I must be doing something wrong -_-' any input?

 

Video Pitch=1
Max FPS=70
HQ4x=1
D3D=1
D3D Windowed=0

 

These are my settings where scaling isn't functioning. When D3D is set to 0 it works but the games feels much smoother with D3D on

Thanks. Glad to hear it is helpful.

 

What OS and video card to you have? I'm not sure that it matters but, just in case...

[localhosed]

HQ4x doesn't work for me either with D3D. For reminder, Im on windows 7 64-bit, AMD Radeon 6850.

[Tycho]

Hopefully, this will get the HQ4X working with D3D. Please try it and let me know. My system won't support the resolution.

 

update: Released a new patch. See newer posts in this topic. Thanks for supporting TFTDextender!

Edited July 16, 2012 by Tycho

[localhosed]

For me the 1.03p4 patch seems to make HQ4X work fine in both fullscreen and windowed with D3D enabled. That was a fast fix.

 

Edit : I'm glad you happen to know how to patch this game so well.

I noticed lately that two features that I think are very good about UFOExtender aren't working in TFTDExtender. I don't know if you have a TODO list, or plans for your patching, but those features are save equipment, doubleclick movement.and range based accuracy.

 

Have you noticed these not working? Anyone else? Save equipment makes the game much less of a hassle especially when you've got lots of troops.

 

I just stumbled into this from craft combat mechanics : "Also consider that all missiles AND cannons actually travel to their target and have a speed delta that is added on top of the XCraft's. This information is the first four numbers before the weapons' rates of fire in the executable" - Morgan525

 

Cool.

 

Another edit : Mp3 music works for me after 8 hours of using. Though I don't mind the fact, it sometimes seems to stop playing music, maybe it is a side effect of using TFTDExtender or combomod, I don't know. Otherwise it seems fine.