This time, I alighted on a strange bug: Saved games are NOT loadable neither playable...
As usually, I was playing with the settings 'Autosave: Each turn' and 'Autosave files to keep: 5'. I was playing as many turn in a row as possible until the Blank Data Window bug occures, then I was quitting the game and running it again to 'Continue' my game.
I began loading the turn 425's file. The last turns the BDW bug occured are turns 398, 425, 442 and 461 (after the occurences I mentionned on the forum).
On turn 461 or more, the BDW bug occured, it was quite late, so I went to sleep.
Today, I tried to 'Continue' my game: Nothing! FreeMars didn't react.
I checked for the last Savegame (turn 461) file size: 0 Kb.
Then I tried to load the previous turn's file (460): Nothing again!
I tried to load the savegame files of each of the last turns I could play in a row (turns 456 to 460): NOTHING!!!!
They are not empty files (~1.3 Mo).
I checked for the FM version (just in case of an error), but it's the last one: FM: 0.8.5.4 FR: 0.1.3.1
The HD free space is ~9 Gb and was probably ~8 Gb when FM autosaved the turn 461.
I enclosed them in the annexed archive, with the last loadable and playable file (turn 442). This file works fine.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
It is because of the colony of Göttingen. The "ö" causes problems because there is a bug in save game code. It was about UTF-8 encoding, I think I fixed it but I can not retry it on my machine.
If you want to continue to use these saved games, open the files in a text editor, replace "Göttingen" with "Gottingen".
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Before I checked for your answer, I continued playing from the last working savegame file... and the bug occured again. Probably when I re-built the same Colony with the same name. Now, it seems to work fine, probably because I forgot the special character...
I hope you made the game to check each character entered in renaming Colonies... but don't forget the Shuttles and the Transporters. When there are special characters in your language, you can use them automatically.
errr... I've got a time machine, but unfortunately, it can travel only back in time, not forward. I can go to yesterday to change the present, but not to tomorrow and change the future. Sorry... ;)
Will the version 0.8.5.5 be available soon?
Will the A.I. deserve the "I" of its name and the opponents do something else but dying by starvation?
By Véñû$ ;)
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I downloaded FM v.0.8.5.5, I played a few of turns and when I had five colonies, I renamed all of them using special characters.
In the Rename Colony dialogue box, it works fine (Arial font).
In the Colony Manager Data Window, it works fine (Arial font).
Unfortunately, in the Colony Data Window, the special characters are displayed as rectangles (special font) and the dash (-) is replaced by a comma (,).
Then I saved the game, quitted, started it again and tried to load the game with special characters.
It works perfectly! I could continue the game.
But the special characters are still not displayed in the Colony Window... a problem of fonts.
I searched on my HD among the fonts I gathered which can support the special characters and look like the one you used for Free Mars. I found only one: Black Wolf. Unfortunately, I don't know how I got it... it may be protected by copyrights...
It supports all the special characters I can use in my language. Other languages using special characters can use different special characters. This means, if you really want Free Mars to support every language's special characters, you'll probably need to use many fonts.
So I assume the best thing it to make FM refuse the player the use of special characters, thus you'll have to implement a spellcheck function. It was easy when programming in BASIC, you only had to check for each character's ASCII code:
48 to 57: numbers
65 to 90: upper case
97 to 122: lower case
You can exceptionally authorize a few more characters, such as:
39: apostrophe '
45: dash -
I don't know if this can still work with modern languages such as Java...
This time, I alighted on a strange bug: Saved games are NOT loadable neither playable...
As usually, I was playing with the settings 'Autosave: Each turn' and 'Autosave files to keep: 5'. I was playing as many turn in a row as possible until the Blank Data Window bug occures, then I was quitting the game and running it again to 'Continue' my game.
I began loading the turn 425's file. The last turns the BDW bug occured are turns 398, 425, 442 and 461 (after the occurences I mentionned on the forum).
On turn 461 or more, the BDW bug occured, it was quite late, so I went to sleep.
Today, I tried to 'Continue' my game: Nothing! FreeMars didn't react.
I checked for the last Savegame (turn 461) file size: 0 Kb.
Then I tried to load the previous turn's file (460): Nothing again!
I tried to load the savegame files of each of the last turns I could play in a row (turns 456 to 460): NOTHING!!!!
They are not empty files (~1.3 Mo).
I checked for the FM version (just in case of an error), but it's the last one:
FM: 0.8.5.4
FR: 0.1.3.1
The HD free space is ~9 Gb and was probably ~8 Gb when FM autosaved the turn 461.
I enclosed them in the annexed archive, with the last loadable and playable file (turn 442). This file works fine.
The savegame files:
I'm still checking the save game files.
I found it.
It is because of the colony of Göttingen. The "ö" causes problems because there is a bug in save game code. It was about UTF-8 encoding, I think I fixed it but I can not retry it on my machine.
If you want to continue to use these saved games, open the files in a text editor, replace "Göttingen" with "Gottingen".
Before I checked for your answer, I continued playing from the last working savegame file... and the bug occured again. Probably when I re-built the same Colony with the same name. Now, it seems to work fine, probably because I forgot the special character...
I hope you made the game to check each character entered in renaming Colonies... but don't forget the Shuttles and the Transporters. When there are special characters in your language, you can use them automatically.
Poor Pol! Poor Vietnamian! Poor Swedish! Poor French! Poor Spaniards! etc. ;)
I hope I fixed it :) Can you please try it in version 0.8.5.5?
errr... I've got a time machine, but unfortunately, it can travel only back in time, not forward. I can go to yesterday to change the present, but not to tomorrow and change the future. Sorry... ;)
Will the version 0.8.5.5 be available soon?
Will the A.I. deserve the "I" of its name and the opponents do something else but dying by starvation?
By Véñû$ ;)
It is almost ready :) I'm doing some tests, but it won't be compatible with previous saved games, sorry. :(
I downloaded FM v.0.8.5.5, I played a few of turns and when I had five colonies, I renamed all of them using special characters.
In the Rename Colony dialogue box, it works fine (Arial font).
In the Colony Manager Data Window, it works fine (Arial font).
Unfortunately, in the Colony Data Window, the special characters are displayed as rectangles (special font) and the dash (-) is replaced by a comma (,).
Then I saved the game, quitted, started it again and tried to load the game with special characters.
It works perfectly! I could continue the game.
But the special characters are still not displayed in the Colony Window... a problem of fonts.
I searched on my HD among the fonts I gathered which can support the special characters and look like the one you used for Free Mars. I found only one: Black Wolf. Unfortunately, I don't know how I got it... it may be protected by copyrights...
It supports all the special characters I can use in my language. Other languages using special characters can use different special characters. This means, if you really want Free Mars to support every language's special characters, you'll probably need to use many fonts.
So I assume the best thing it to make FM refuse the player the use of special characters, thus you'll have to implement a spellcheck function. It was easy when programming in BASIC, you only had to check for each character's ASCII code:
You can exceptionally authorize a few more characters, such as:
I don't know if this can still work with modern languages such as Java...
Screenshots in the annexed file:
thanks for the test :)
let the character error in colony dialog stay like that for a while, since it does not prevent playing the game.
... and I also checked the Black wolf font but I think it is like the one I'm using currently and does not support special characters.
thanks for the suggestions anyway :)