6 replies to this topic

[Eggrollz]

Heya!

 

First of all I would like to say that your mod is AWESOME regardless the save\load issue but I mean come on some missions are so F-ing hard (even on medium) that its gets way to annoying and boring to play like 30-45 minutes and then fail and restart it all over again just because you can't save or load the game :\

 

I don't understand much about the technical aspect of this stuff etc. but I remember that in version 2.0 of MO the save\load feature worked since it was using Npatch and not ARES.

Any reason why you didn't keep sticking to good ol' Npatch?

Hopefully the next release will include a fixed version of ARES that will re-enable the save\load feature.

 

Overall like I said at the beginning your mod rocks and so far its the best mod for YR I have ever played

 

Peace

[fff]

I remember part of the reason they changed from Npatch to Ares was because npatch was more likely to get crashes and had different bugs/glitches which also was more unstable in both skirmish and multiplayer portion of it. Ares is way more stable all around and offer lots of features and bugfixes to the old engine of RA2. Another negative about Npatch is that when you install it, it overrides ur Exe and may have caused troubles to some people having to uninstall npatch to fully get rid of it. Ares on the other hand unlike Npatch and other exe patches, Ares does not modify the game's exe. Instead, Ares uses Syringe to inject its code into the game during runtime, leaving the original game unchanged, thus removing the need to uninstall it, backup exes or un-patchers. So far in
version 04 Ares is very powerful already and way better than Npatch imo. The save/loading issue is not such a hassle to me, that's why they let you skip and choose other mission if you can't finish it. Ares will get better each new release and hopefully the save/loading issue will be fixed sooner or later.

Edited by fff, 09 December 2013 - 04:02 AM.

[Atomic_Noodles]

You can choose the missions from the menu screen now so its more or less a problem of doing a "perfect" run in a single sitting for each mission.

 

The problem is with so many new logics added/reiintroduced by Ares if Save/Load IS reenabled it would end up broken next time Ares gets updated. Every time a new logic is added the Game will have to be checked for crashes/bugs/errors every single time. And checking out and fixing these problems takes alot of time. Theres only 1 person currently doing the main coding of Ares

 

To make it simpler to understand... think of like someone asked you to build a car. Every time you get new upgrades you have to build that car from the ground up every time. Even if the upgrades are just a tiny thing like a cup holder or a larger upgrade like adding a Rocket Launcher.

Edited by Atomic_Noodles, 09 December 2013 - 04:22 AM.

[lovalmidas]

Alex is looking at Ares 0.5 so he can't (and won't) focus much on Save/Load. One way to solve this: expand Ares team. Come on, of hundreds of players there should be a programmer out there, right? 

[Graion Dilach]

I don't understand much about the technical aspect of this stuff etc. but I remember that in version 2.0 of MO the save\load feature worked since it was using Npatch and not ARES.

 

 

ROFL. Only in psi, they worked. RockPatch 1.08 broke the savegames so the first versions of MO 2.0 neither had such.

 

Also, sticking to NPatch... yea, well, that sucked. Big time.

[lovalmidas]

Heya!

 

First of all I would like to say that your mod is AWESOME regardless the save\load issue but I mean come on some missions are so F-ing hard (even on medium) that its gets way to annoying and boring to play like 30-45 minutes and then fail and restart it all over again just because you can't save or load the game :\

 

I don't understand much about the technical aspect of this stuff etc. but I remember that in version 2.0 of MO the save\load feature worked since it was using Npatch and not ARES.

Any reason why you didn't keep sticking to good ol' Npatch?

Hopefully the next release will include a fixed version of ARES that will re-enable the save\load feature.

 

Overall like I said at the beginning your mod rocks and so far its the best mod for YR I have ever played

 

Peace

 

To add on to what has been mentioned earlier, Save-load function may be available for NPatch, but it is not perfect. We have heard instances of errors and crashes on loading a savegame in NPatch, which you won't notice unless you exit the current game. Then it'll still be another 30-40 minutes all over again.

 

I don't know the technical aspects of saving-loading, but I can at least shed some light on why we chose Ares over NPatch for MO3.0.

 

Staffing

Ares is currently being worked on mainly by one person (with contributions by others like GD). For contrast, NPatch is currently being worked on by... no one. We like sticking to the program that is still in development.... and with support staff to debug our except.txts.

 

Approaches

NPatch had a focus of features before bugtesting, which led to many wonderful but broken toys. This meant many modders could implement a greater variety of modding, but had to face increasing bug-reports that they could not solve on their end. Ares had the opposite focus. The pace is much more moderated. You will still see several logics in NPatch that Ares had not implemented yet, but at the very least those available are more stable than their NPatch counterparts.

 

Why we used NPatch for MO2.0

MO2.0 used NPatch because Ares was not created then. While NPatch is still available, many of the newer features in MO3.0 (like AttachEffect) are only supported by Ares.

 

If you want a more detailed and technical comparison (in terms of game features), check out this https://github.com/A...cks-and-Patches

If you want a little fun read, here's a summary of the history of NPatch _{(like how the evil Deezire and his henchmen make this sound like a cartoon )} : http://modenc.renega...s.com/RockPatch

 

 

 

We understand that a Save-load feature is in high demand. I want it as much as you do. But a one-member team (that supports several mods by the way) is not godlike ;P. That's why I hope MO3.0 (and other Ares mods too) can bring in some people to help out in development. MO3.0 recruitment is open. Ares recruitment is open (in a way ). Note that Ares is a different project from MO3.0.

 

Anyway, it's great you enjoy the mod nonetheless.

 

--------

 

Graion, just inquisitive, did VK release his source code for any of his RockPatches? I wonder if his code could be of any use for Ares, even if it's a different way of injecting code into the executable.

[Graion Dilach]

There are no source codes for Rock/NPatch(Ext), since they are direct edits of the game itself. One could go over and compare the two gamemds to find entry points, but that's all how could one convert NPatch code to Ares.