[W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :)

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich >> Scenarios and Modding >> [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :)

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[W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/5/2015 12:57:21 AM

Toffi

Posts: 6
Joined: 12/31/2014
Status: offline

I know this game is kinda old, but it is a unique game; I love it :)
So I decided to do some tests, what may be possible in the future to give
this game a new chance. (Sadly the game developers aren't working anymore
on this game since 2010 or 2011).

A good method imho is to inject a dll (dynamic link library), so
we were able to 'hijack' some of the gamecode and replace it with
improved and/or bugfixed code then. Or we could add some new features.

A first step I made a few days ago was to hijack the "airAttack.6"
function, which is responsible for dogfights (fighter vs. fighter).

I made a short video ... : Aargh, I'm not allowed to post links here
I'll post a screenshot instead :/

It may be also a good idea to add an editor directly to the game.
The old editor (made by Creeper) is good, but outdated and very slow.

See ya next time..

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/5/2015 1:04:34 AM

warshipbuilder

Posts: 1960
Joined: 2/23/2013
From: C-eh-n-eh-d-eh
Status: offline

Anything you can do that will breathe some life in to this game, will be most welcome.

I wish you good luck and keep us informed!

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warshipbuilder

Any ship can be a minesweeper, once.
ED/BTR Ressurection Project
https://www.bombercommandmuseumarchives.ca/

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Post #: 2

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/6/2015 4:53:48 PM

Toffi

Posts: 6
Joined: 12/31/2014
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: warshipbuilder

Anything you can do that will breathe some life in to this game, will be most welcome.

I wish you good luck and keep us informed!

Thanks warshipbuilder!

Here is a small update.

The last 2 days I spent my time on adding an editor to the game...
Ok, it's not an editor yet, but I made a lot of listviews which shows
all aircraft, airGroups, locations, pilots, devices, leader and all raids.
I added also a sort function for every listview column.

Next step for me is to figure out how I could edit these values in a user-friendly way and finally
write back the changes to the games memory. But this should be not a big deal, I suppose ... ;-)

See ya next time,
Toffi

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/8/2015 8:27:09 PM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

That's odd...
fyi: I can't login to this forum with my Toffi account anymore,
so whenever you see a post from UnknownGuy... it's just me, Toffi

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Post #: 4

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/11/2015 8:05:46 AM

JeffroK

Posts: 6391
Joined: 1/26/2005
Status: offline

Must have upset the apple cart!

Keep going, this is a potentially great game.

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/11/2015 8:23:59 AM

cohimbra

Posts: 632
Joined: 10/15/2011
From: Italy
Status: offline

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/12/2015 1:02:34 AM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

I've made good progress with my project!
Most all of the relevant game data are now available in the editor.

Also I managed to draw directly to the game screen.
That open up the way to use our own gfx routines.
The possibilities are endless e.g. high resolution aircraft images and so on ...

That's all, folks!

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/12/2015 9:41:03 AM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

btw, can somebody email me a defect save game file,
which crashes the game if you replay that turn.

I want to check if I'm able to fix these crashes.

Thank you!

edit: ok, I got the file; thanks!

< Message edited by UnknownGuy -- 6/12/2015 12:37:27 PM >

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Post #: 8

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/12/2015 2:40:27 PM

chemkid

Posts: 1238
Joined: 12/15/2012
Status: offline

.

< Message edited by chemkid -- 4/26/2018 6:15:40 AM >

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Post #: 9

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/13/2015 8:25:58 AM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: chemkid

seeing your screenshots, looks like hacking the game rather than modding some files -
brings back some memories... i'd love to mod CoH but that damn code isn't going to let me do ****!

Well, you're right, chem, currently it's a kind of hacking,
but once my dll injection is fully functional, we can start modding the game files.
You know, better graphics etc.

If this game wouldn't have been abandoned by the developers,
then there would be no need for that kind of hacking, imo.
But I would like to see an improved version of this game!

(in reply to chemkid)

Post #: 10

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/15/2015 10:31:30 AM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

added aircraft images to the listview.

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/19/2015 5:59:08 PM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

added realtime updates in the Message listview.
added button for highlighting airfields with airgroups.
added button to lock the map to prevent map jumping.
(if you want to watch a special location during a bombing run, for example)

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/19/2015 8:38:22 PM

cohimbra

Posts: 632
Joined: 10/15/2011
From: Italy
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: UnknownGuy
added button to lock the map to prevent map jumping.

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/19/2015 9:02:34 PM

mikkey

Posts: 3142
Joined: 2/10/2008
From: Slovakia
Status: offline

Looks excellent, thanks UnknownGuy!

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Post #: 14

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/26/2015 10:07:41 PM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

added a map to the messages listview (now it looks like the tool "message reader").

So it's possible to lock the map in the main window on a specific location and simultaneously
you can follow the regular action in the message listview map.
Ok, perhaps not an important feature, but it was fun for me to code this behavior.

Nevertheless, next week I'll work on the editor again.

Have a nice weekend!

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/27/2015 7:13:10 PM

lecrop

Posts: 412
Joined: 4/14/2009
Status: offline

Amazing work!

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/28/2015 4:06:10 PM

UnknownGuy

Posts: 10
Joined: 6/8/2015
From: Germany
Status: offline

First attempt to get more infos on the messages listview map.
(Only the players own airgroups are shown yet.)

The small black circle above the group name shows the exact position of these raid.
What do you think? Should I draw the circles in different colors to
identify their current missions? Color white for "Returning to airfield", red for "intercept" or
something like that?

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< Message edited by UnknownGuy -- 6/28/2015 5:09:17 PM >

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/28/2015 8:09:08 PM

warshipbuilder

Posts: 1960
Joined: 2/23/2013
From: C-eh-n-eh-d-eh
Status: offline

Colour coding would be nice, that way you could tell at a glance what is the disposition of your aircraft.

I appreciate your work

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warshipbuilder

Any ship can be a minesweeper, once.
ED/BTR Ressurection Project
https://www.bombercommandmuseumarchives.ca/

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Post #: 18

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/28/2015 11:06:46 PM

cohimbra

Posts: 632
Joined: 10/15/2011
From: Italy
Status: offline

Agree with warshipbuilder; can I suggest the same colour used ingame (green for approach, black for fight, blue for return)?

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/30/2015 10:16:01 AM

AlterEgo

Posts: 83
Joined: 6/29/2015
Status: offline

Hello, it's me, Toffi aka UnknownGuy.

And it happened again!

So I have to say that I'm very sorry about my current username inconsistency here at the forum.
My first matrixforum account "Toffi" was lost after merging my matrix account with my slitherine account (New Unified Login System).
My second account "UnkownGuy" I lost after changing my email address in the control panel.

Both times Matrix told me they have sent an email to me to confirm the changes,
but I never got emails from Matrix (perhaps I spelled the email address wrong, idk).

So I cant login with my old accounts anymore and because it's easier and faster for me
to create a new account instead of discussing my login problems with Matrix, here
I am back again as "AlterEgo".

I hope this new account last longer than the old ones. *Sigh*
Toffi

-------------------

Back to topic

Thank you guys for the kudos and the feedback you gave to me since the beginning of the project!
I am dependent on your advice and suggestions.

I just stumbled over an issue you probably already know if you playing the game in more detail.
You can see that the III./SKG 10 at pos 951,1186 are trying to attack a target at pos 629,229
several hundreds miles away, and alongside said: the target is not an enemy...
This bug is on my bugfix ToDo-list!

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/30/2015 10:25:32 AM

AlterEgo

Posts: 83
Joined: 6/29/2015
Status: offline

here is the same situation how it looks in the messageview map window.
Some colour coding is done.
There is currently no FOW activated, so there are all raids visible on the map.
Also the "target pos infos" are only for debugging purposes.

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< Message edited by AlterEgo -- 6/30/2015 11:27:53 AM >

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 6/30/2015 12:13:55 PM

AlterEgo

Posts: 83
Joined: 6/29/2015
Status: offline

here is another odd issue I can address in the future if needed.
You can see in the red circles that some groups are running out of fuel during combat.
That's because the fuel consumption is not very well calculated in the game,imo.
It could be that an attack costs 6-18 fuel (fuel = flight time in minutes)
depends on a random value, iirc.
Either we change the fuel consumption routine, or planes with no fuel should do a crash landing.
What do you think? Or am I too fussy? This could also be the case.

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/1/2015 3:30:46 PM

solops

Posts: 814
Joined: 1/31/2002
From: Central Texas
Status: offline

OOOra!

I'd have bought this game years ago at full price if it had not been fatally broken and never patched. Shame on Matrix. If you can fix the Oil/Fuel problem, the issue with "pools"/pilots/planes and the invincibly rated Luftwaffe fighters, I will buy a copy.

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Post #: 23

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/2/2015 3:20:45 AM

warshipbuilder

Posts: 1960
Joined: 2/23/2013
From: C-eh-n-eh-d-eh
Status: offline

Change the fuel consumption.

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warshipbuilder

Any ship can be a minesweeper, once.
ED/BTR Ressurection Project
https://www.bombercommandmuseumarchives.ca/

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Post #: 24

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/2/2015 6:00:49 AM

solops

Posts: 814
Joined: 1/31/2002
From: Central Texas
Status: offline

If I recall correctly, one of the fuel related issues was that it was not possible to cripple it by bombing oilfields or refineries, i.e. the strategic bombing campaign had some issues. This is in addition to any fuel consumption stuff. There are a couple of old threads still floating out there about this and one or two other serious issues.

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/3/2015 5:07:47 AM

AlterEgo

Posts: 83
Joined: 6/29/2015
Status: offline

quote:

I just stumbled over an issue you probably already know if you playing the game in more detail.
You can see that the III./SKG 10 at pos 951,1186 are trying to attack a target at pos 629,229
several hundreds miles away, and alongside said: the target is not an enemy...
This bug is on my bugfix ToDo-list!

Good news, I found and fixed the bug!

< Message edited by AlterEgo -- 7/3/2015 6:17:35 AM >

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Post #: 26

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/3/2015 5:17:03 AM

AlterEgo

Posts: 83
Joined: 6/29/2015
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: solops

If I recall correctly, one of the fuel related issues was that it was not possible to cripple it by bombing oilfields or refineries, i.e. the strategic bombing campaign had some issues. This is in addition to any fuel consumption stuff. There are a couple of old threads still floating out there about this and one or two other serious issues.

Thanks for the info, solops!
I'll look through the old threads when my editor works as intended.

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Post #: 27

RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/3/2015 7:40:13 AM

planetbrain

Posts: 88
Joined: 1/27/2006
Status: offline

Just to let you know that there is someone else out there keeping a keen eye on your progress.
I bought GGEDTBTR on special a while ago now but have not much touched it yet. I certainly will if you can fix things up a bit.

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/4/2015 10:59:57 AM

DanSez

Posts: 1023
Joined: 2/5/2012
Status: offline

Please continue your efforts.
Any improvements are welcome.
thanks

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RE: [W.I.P] New Life for EDBTR :) - 7/4/2015 3:36:47 PM

warshipbuilder

Posts: 1960
Joined: 2/23/2013
From: C-eh-n-eh-d-eh
Status: offline

quote:

I'll look through the old threads when my editor works as intended.

Look at KayBay's thread http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2274148

He give a number of different ways in which you should be able to win as the Allies. Whether they all work I can't say, but it might be worth investigating. Also, apparently you can not win either of the tactical ground scenarios, so you may wish to look at that as well. Sorry if this seems unfair to pile all this on your shoulders, but right now you are the one hope all of us have in making the game work as it should, so I give you a BIG THANKYOU for your efforts.

_____________________________

warshipbuilder

Any ship can be a minesweeper, once.
ED/BTR Ressurection Project
https://www.bombercommandmuseumarchives.ca/

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Post #: 30

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