SE4Batch status?

[Aiken]

Hello Mr. All,

I've heard that SE4Batch doesn't work under XP and where is no hope for further development. But what about win2k? I've experienced some problems with this utility running on win2k (something about an executable not found), but maybe I'm doing something wrong and programm itself is ok?

Thanx in advance.

[Fyron]

MB lost the source code in a hard drive failure, so the project is dead.

The program does not work in win 2000 or XP. It only works under win 9x (98 and 95).

[ April 05, 2004, 05:12: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Aiken]

Thank you for help Fyron.
Win95 you've said? It's time to remember Good Old Times(tm) I suppose.

[Fyron]

Well, I assume it will work on 95... I never tried it. I could only get it to work on 98, never on 2000 or XP.

You can make a nice 100 MB partition for win 95 and it will be happy.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Guys,

I tuned the new Rage AI running gantlets against other AI using the SE4Batch on WindowsXP.

So it definitely works.
What problem do you have with it ?

[Ruatha]

I've runned SEIV from command line in WinXP so it's no problem making a simple batch file in 2K or XP.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Main software :
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newup...1016581587.ZIP

Then apply the patch on it by unzipping on top of previous files the content of this one :
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newup...1017336891.ZIP

The problem you will experiment is that you wont be able to change the default parameters using SE4Batch, so you will have to edit the config file (Notepad will be fine), or to do a special installation of SE4 in the default path (c:\program File\Shrapnel Games\Malfador\Space Empire 4 Gold or something like that).

Otherwise, it will work like a charm.
I don't have sugar. Can I offer you a drop of milk ?

If you need a "How to use it" I can write one when I'll be back at home.

[Aiken]

Yes, Unknown_Enemy is right - SE4Batch is working on NT. Just did it. But since config file is in DBF format, Notepad is not the best idea to edit it (actually Notepad will screw your config). Better grab some free dbf editor (I'm using CDBF), when open paramete.dbf and edit required fields manually. Save changes and run SE4Batch. It will work perfectly.

[Fyron]

I could not get the program to accept folder names longer than 8 characters, or the DOS style abbreviations for them...

[Aiken]

How to use SE4Batch on WinXP/2000 machine:

1. Install Se4Batch and apply the patch to Version 1.1
Assume that Space Empires IV installed into the "C:\Games\SpaceEmpires IV" folder.

2. Locate file paramete.dbf in folder where SE4Batch installed. Open it with any DBF editor you can find (ie CDBF or DBF Viewer), if you have Microsoft Office you can try to open it with Microsoft Access. Though I had errors after I've tried to edit this file with Notepad, but Unknown_Enemy said that Notepad works fine. So you can try Notepad also. Make a backup copy of paramete.dbf befor editing!

3. Open file should look like this:
--------------------------------------------------
PARID | PARPATHSE4 | PARPATHSAV |PARREPEAT | PATHMOD |PARDELAY |
--------------------------------------------------
1 | C:\PROGRA~1\SHRAPN~1\MALFAD~1\SPACEE~1 | C:\PROGRA~1\SHRAPN~1\MALFAD~1\SPACEE~1\SAVEGAME | 10 | TDM-MODPACK | 0 |
-------------------------------------------------- (sorry too little space to fit strings)
Now change the values of fields according to your setup:
PARPATHSE4: "C:\PROGRA~1\SHRAPN~1\MALFAD~1\SPACEE~1" to "C:\GAMES\SPACEE~1",
PARPATHSAV: "C:\PROGRA~1\SHRAPN~1\MALFAD~1\SPACEE~1\SAVEGAME" to "C:\GAMES\SPACEE~1\SAVEGAME",
PARREPEAT: "10" to any number of turns you wish to process in batch,
PARPATHMOD: "TDM-MODPACK" to the name of a mod folder you're going to play, or delete it completely if you're playing stock,
PARDELAY: "0" to any number of turns between backups (see SE4Batch readme) or leave it "0" if you don't want backups.
Save and exit.

4. Follow the points 5-10 of SE4Batch Readme (too lazy to rewrite 'em).

Unknown_Enemy, if I'm wrong about Notepad, correct me please and maybe rewrite this howto in good language if you wish. I'll delete my post when.

[ April 05, 2004, 20:31: Message edited by: aiken ]