PBW now supporting SE5.
 

We have added SE5 support for PBW. I've not made any news announcements on the PBW site and I'm not posting this to the Strategy First forum just yet. This needs some people to kick the tires and make sure everything works. Please feel free to use it, report any problems. For now just consider this an open beta and treat it accordingly.

Curently there is no command line option with SE5 for mod selection so the only version supported is 1.17. I've talked to Aaron and he is working on adding that in a future patch so at some point we should be able to get the balance mod and others setup.

Have fun, and feel free to make a donation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Geoschmo

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Yaa....now if we can get the file size down to a slightly more friendly level....

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

One tire kicking, coming up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

I would have figured it would try to load with the mod stored by the savegame. The command line processing ignores that data?

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

So tell me how to find the first game. Are we going to start a trial game?

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Even though the savegame stores some data file info, you still select the mod before you pick the savegame when you launch SE5. The command line currently has no option to do that like SE4 did. If it did use the data stored in the savegame file though I think that would mean there would be no way to change mods once a game started, so that would be a bad idea.

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

This is great news Geo.

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Um, since the game pulls the mod data from the save, why would there need to be a command line option for it? My mod saves have always loaded fine without having to pick the mod first.

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Ok, that's what Fyron said too. I was making some assumptions abotu how it worked, perhaps I was incorrect. I have actually not played anything but stock SE5 myself.

When you play a mod version you don't have to select the mod version when you load the game up? You can select stock SE5 from the load menu and then your modded savegame file and it will use the mod data files from the savegame file? If that's the case then perhaps we don't need any mod support on PBW. But if that's the case how do you change the mod of a savegame after it starts? Can you not do that?

Geoschmo

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

You do not need to select a mod when loading a savegame. SE5 automatically loads the mod when you attempt to load the savegame. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif
The downside of this is, you're right, you can't change the mod being used in a savegame without actually modifying the contents of the mod data folder. This means that in order to upgrade a game to a newer version of a mod, the newer version must overwrite the older version, forcing everyone on PBW to upgrade their copy of the mod. I suppose it's something that we'll have to live with until Aaron implements a "mod override" in the UI or command line somewhere. But it really shouldn't be all that bad - it SHOULD mean less confusion when mods are upgraded, as all games will be upgraded simultaneously! And if the new version of the mod is incompatible with the old, well then it ought to get a new folder name! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
Still, great work at getting SE5 supported! It came as a complete surprise! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

I'm still a little fuzzy on how this works. If the mod data is included in the savegame file, why would changing the contents of the mod data folders have any effect on a game at all once it's started? And if changing the data in the mod folders does have some effect, that tells me the game is touching the data folders during host processing, which means we will have to have the mod data folders on the server for the mods to work. Perhaps the only thing the savegame file actually contains regarding the mod is a pointer to which data folders it is using, not the actual data itself?

Geoschmo

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Hey wait! *smacks head* I so stoopid. When you load a saved game it doesn't even take you to the screen where you select a version. I kept thinking it did, but you only see the version select screen when you create a new game. So probably I was correct when I said the savegame contains a pointer of some kind to the mod folder. So the mods would have to be on the server, but we mayhaps wouldn't need command line options.

Though this has the potential to be way ugly. It would mean that the mod folder would have to be named the same on the PBW server as it is on everyone's pc's. With SE4 I could call the mod folder whatever I wanted and just point to the correct folder with the command line option.

And as you say Ed new versions of mods would need different folder names or all games using the mod would have to upgrade at the same time. Yuck!

You know the built in mod selector for SE5 seemed like a great feature at first, but I'm thinking now maybe not so much. By locking it into the game itself, it kind of limits our flexibility in this area.

Here's a question. What happens if you try to run the host turn for a mod savegame and don't have the mod folders on the host machine. Will the game run at all?

Geoschmo

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

If the mod folder isn't named exactly the same, SEV shrugs, then loads stock instead.

This can have rather..odd..results.

So it looks like the savegame just has a pointer that says "look at this mod folder".

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

No, actually new versions of mods should NOT have new folder names; otherwise they will be automatically savegame-incompatible because the folder name (which is SE5's key to the mod) is different. The only time new versions of mods should have new folder names is when they are going to break savegames already. Captain Kwok knows about this; he designed the Balance Mod so that it always goes into the Balance Mod directory, not Balance Mod v0.98 or whatever, because then no one could upgrade their games. (Well, they'd have to manually rename the folder. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif) I suppose once Kwok releases a version of the mod that is not compatible with old savegames, he'll rename the folder to something like Balance Mod v1.x, and keep that until he reaches v2.0 or something.
The alternative would be to have a separate directory for every mod version on PBW, and force players to go around renaming their folders or making shortcuts in their GameTypes directory for backward compatibility with old savegames... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif Dunno about you but I prefer the forced upgrading between compatible versions personally http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

maybe we should twist aaron's arm to add a line in the Mod_Definition file for it too look for.

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

If it did use the data stored in the savegame file though I think that would mean there would be no way to change mods once a game started, so that would be a bad idea.

There is no way to change mod folder names, since you can not specify a mod to play the savegame with from within the game interface either. It is indeed a bad idea.

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Here's an idea: create dynamic links to mod folders. In Windows-speak, that would be a Shortcut. Then, PBW would create a unique shortcut for each game, which would be mirrored on all the players' machines. So, if there is a game called "The Best SEV Game Ever", it would be created with a "mod folder" called "The Best SEV Game Ever Mod", which would then point to the mod folder being used. To upgrade one game to a new version of the mod, simply redirect the shortcut to the new "Mod v.x.xx" folder, which prevents PBW-wide game upgrades. I could probably write a short little dialog program that will search for the SEV folder(s), list out all the mod folder(s), and then generate a specifically-named shortcut to the proper place, if it turns out this works. But next week. Too much school work to finish this week http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I leave it to someone else to try out the shortcut idea for now....

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Yeah, that would work Will if I understand what you mean. It would be kind of a pain in the butt for the PBW admins currently as we would in effect be setting up a separate mod for every game. Even in cases where they are using the same mod.

It's kind of along the lines of an idea I have had for a future version of PBW which would allow the game owner to setup their own mods. You'd basically upload a zip file to the game page and PBW would extract this each time the turn was processed. Then changing the mod would be as easy as the game owner uploading a different zip file. We currently don't have it coded to work that way though.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Not quite, Geo... Instead of making a new mod folder for every game, you would make a new mod SHORTCUT for every game. So if there are five games on PBW using Mod_XYZ, you would have one Mod_XYZ folder, and five shortcuts to the Mod_XYZ folder, each shortcut named after the game. So, upon game creation, all that is needed is a script that will generate a shortcut for the game. As long as SEV is set up to resolve shortcuts when used as a folder... which I don't know if it can.

If not, then Kwok's method would probably be the best way, barring Aaron making changes to how mods are kept in savegames and loaded.

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Oh, I see. It should be easy enough to test whether SE5 will handle a shortcut instead of a folder. You can put a shortcut in your SE5 folder and see if SE5 recognizes it as a mod when you create a new game.

Even if it works for SE5, it doesn't eliminate the main stumbling block to your idea from a PBW perspective. I'd still have to manually setup a mod version for every game. It would save me from having to have actual separate copies of the mod for each game, but that's only a matter of disk space which is really a minor concern. You can always throw another hard drive or two in the server.

However, if I could recode PBW to do what you are suggesting that could work pretty well I think. But that's, as they say, the rub. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Geo, you shouldn't have to define a mod version for each game. Say someone wanted to use the Balance Mod. Fine, stick it in the Gametypes folder.

Once the first turn is made and uploaded, PBW will do the rest automatically; every time the savegame is loaded, it checks to see if the mod folder is there, and if it is, it uses it.

The only wrinkle is the mod folder name must be exactly the same on PBW and on the host's computer, but that's not a big deal..

Someone else wants to use the Balance Mod? No problem, its already set up. The only problem is mod updates.

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

As a test of this I went ahead and added the Balance Mod version .99 to the server gametypes folder. I guess that's all that has to happen. I've never tested whether or not running it from the command line actually pulls from the correct mod folder however. Have anyone verified this running from the command line? If you want to let PBW try and process yours turns that would be cool. I am assuming you would have some way of knowing whether it actually used the mod and not the stock files?

It does look a little confusing as there is still only one version of SE5 showing on PBW even though it's setup for the mod to work. What I will do tonight is add a version ID for the Balance mod, but it will point to the same .exe the stock files pull from. Then if it's working right the savegame file should know where to get the datafiles from.

Then the only issue becomes one of updating when Kwok updates the mod. I'm assuming that if I update the mod on the server and you don't update your pc you will get some sort of version mispatch error when you try to open the next turn. Is that correct?

Geoschmo

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Haven't tested it, so I'm not sure. I'll stick my game into auto-run and see what happens..

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Well it appears that the PBW server auto-processed at least one turn, and I didn't hear any earth shattering boom form the general direction of my garage so that much is ok. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Actually I had tested that much myself and was confident the turns would process fine. I'm curious though whether it seemed to use the mod data files correctly.

I'm also curious to see how long it's going to take to processes games once the empires get large and complicated. In SE4 it's not uncommon for epic games to hit the 20 minute timeout after 100 turns or so. Hopefully SE5 won't end up being more resource intensive and seeing games time out sooner. We'll see what happens in that case.

Geoschmo

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Looks like its running all right.

Now I just have to figure out simultaneous play in SE5. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

Several turns processed without issue. It does seem to take longer than SE4, which isn't surprising. The thing that concerns me is the PBW server timing out, and potential save-game size issues..

Re: PBW now supporting SE5.
 

I think the limit is 10 MB for uploads. That's probably only a concern if you have to run a turn offline and upload it as a manual replacement. I can't imagine a .plr file coming close to that.

The turn 20 minute turn timeout could become an issue. We'll have to keep an eye on that.